


The Best of the Best at Her Worst

by BlueBookBadger



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Gen, Other, aka how THE FUCK is carolina alive after that crash/ai removal/fall, also bringing the triplets back bc i love them and am sad we havent seen them in so long, and the relationships are more implied than part of the storys focus, definitely carolina and the triplets - centric but who knows, me? rvb trash? in the year of our Lord 2018? absolutely., what can i say except you should be dead
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-03
Updated: 2019-04-15
Packaged: 2019-09-05 21:31:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 24,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16818844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlueBookBadger/pseuds/BlueBookBadger
Summary: Carolina was in bad shape. Between the crash, having her AIs forcefully taken, and being thrown off a cliff, there was actually little chance she was even alive after it all. Fortunately, some old friends just happen to be stranded on the very same ice planet. Unfortunately, they have no clue what the fuck is going on and don't know half of the bullshit that's happened during their absence.





	1. Introduction: Oof That's Gonna Leave a Bruise

**Author's Note:**

> That feel when your Dad just watches you get thrown off a cliff but doesn't check for your body before announcing your death.

“Session completed,” The red text read, blinking gently against the dark screen. Tex felt something ambiguous settle in her chest, something cold. Fear? No. Guilt. She couldn’t save him. She had the chance, she had taken it – and she had failed, after coming so close.  
  
Movement caught her eye, somewhere beyond the shattered, frosty window of the Mother of Invention. Agent Maine’s bulky form treaded quickly through the snow, lunging toward Carolina’s unconscious form. A new emotion replaced that shame of failure; the fear of losing another family member spurred her back into action, and she bolted for the exit. She had failed to save Church. She couldn’t fail to save their daughter.  
  


* * *

Carolina felt heavy. The kind of heavy you feel waking up hungover, her limbs distant from her control, her brain struggling to process the overwhelming brightness. She could feel them reaching for her, calling for her.  
  
‘Lina? Lina, get up, please,’ Iota, usually enthusiastic and optimistic at every challenge, sounded uncharacteristically nervous, Eta’s soft sobs the only indication that he too was still with her.  
  
Carolina had tried to ignore her AI as best she could, at least their voices. They were tools, enhancements to her own strengths – meant to calculate velocity and trajectory – not “friends” or even human. They knew she thought this of them (their minds intertwined, after all) and had done their best to keep their distance. The occasional wave of hopelessness from Eta was easily surmounted by Iota’s energy and joy, canceling out both personalities. But now she could really listen to them, Eta whispering fearful data sets to himself and Iota attempting to boost her spirits in spite of their defeat. Defeat. Texas.  
  
Her own frustration more than her AIs prompting helped her sit up, groaning in pain. The weighty numbness had been replaced with a terrible aching, her every bone bruised and battered by the fight and subsequent crash. Something – no, someone was walking toward her. Probably Texas, ready to take her AI and finish her off. Carolina lifted a hand, crawling to her hands and knees as she tried to regain her bearings. Her right leg hurt the worst, the knee joint painfully uncompliant with her futile attempts to escape. The figure was getting closer.  
  
She rolled back over, the cliffside now a blurry delineation from the snowy horizon. Maybe she could beg for her life. Her pride may never recover from this humiliation anyway, what more did she have to lose?  
  
Before slurred pleas could leave her lips, a hand wrapped around her throat, choking her words. Her vision, still blurry, could now make out the golden helmet, though the white armor was still nearly indistinguishable from the snow. Maine?  
  
“What are you doing?” She managed to choke out as she was lifted into the air, though neither Maine nor Sigma responded from the golden orb. Anger still fueled her will. Iota’s persistently annoying voice had been silenced, Eta’s sobs louder than before.  
  
Maine ripped her helmet off with his free hand, easily able to hold her in the air with only one. The air was cold, the freezing wind reviving her lungs from the stale, recirculated air of her helmet. She was lucky this planet had a breathable atmosphere to begin with. Her breath formed a small cloud, leaving an icy film on Maine’s helmet. Her reflection blurred, the crystals fragmenting her bloody face into discoordinate facets.  
  
Blood dripped from her mouth, her lip split in the fight with Tex. A small spatter of blood tainted the pure white snow as she struggled. Fear began to replace her anger. Maine’s free hand reached around the back of her head. Her eyes widened, and it clicked. She knew what was happening.  
  
“No, no!” Carolina screamed, the cry tearing from her throat as she felt them disappear. She hadn’t cherished them, truly, they were just AI after all – but she could feel them be taken against their will.  
  
Eta’s sobs devolved into inhuman shrieks of fear and pain, his usually resigned sorrow changing to a sharp pang of fear and undiluted grief. Iota clung to her. She could feel him do it. His happiness, his bliss – all his known life had been connected with her and her thoughts. Every battle an opportunity to him, every challenge an accomplishment not yet won. He didn’t want to leave her. And it tore through her mind.  
  
Flashes of memories best left buried – her mother’s funeral, the way her father looked at her when she just was enough for him, and, stars above, York’s pained voice, softly calling her name as she kicked him away to find Tex. These painful visitations were mixed with burning bliss and mirth – her mother’s pride at some homemade macaroni artwork, her father’s laughter, and York, snoring softly, his hand holding her own as she slowly regained consciousness in the ICU. They blended and intertwined in a cocktail of emotions so intense and so painful Carolina wasn’t sure when she had lost consciousness.  
  
These mixed memories lasted for hours, a lifetime perhaps, and yet when her eyes opened, glazed by confusion and pain, Maine was staring at the AI fragments in his palm. Closing his fist, his helmet turned back to Carolina. She wanted to say something, to ask why. But she could barely keep the still swirling memories from compromising her consciousness. Over the snow, the soft, beautiful snow, a darker, smaller figure darted. She couldn’t tell who.  
  
Her body swayed forward, the pressure of his hand around her throat tightening as he drew her back. Then she was flying. Some part of her brain registered a voice crying out in genuine fear and panic, but it was distant, far away as the air rushed past her ears. Her hands reach upwards during her fall, reaching for…something, anything to ground her emotionally, not physically. A tiny voice, in the back of her mind, whispered softly.  
  
‘I’m going to die,’ It was her own voice. Her own mind, parting the jumbled memories and emotions to instill a quiet over her. She stopped reaching, her lips drawing together as she felt the fall last longer than survivable. Carolina almost had enough time to whisper those words out loud before she hit the ground below.  
  
“I’m going to die,”  
  


* * *

Tex felt that same emotion, that same guilt and grief over her failure settle once more in her heart. The grief, however, was for someone else for once. For Carolina. It wracked her senses, seeing her daughter, her baby girl, bleed and fall. Omega stirred, deep inside her mind.  
  
‘Your fault,’ It wasn’t an accusatory whisper. It was statement of fact. Texas had seen Carolina had fallen through the front window of the MoI, and upon registering stable signs of life, had left to find the Alpha. If Tex had gone to her, gotten her somewhere safe, safe from – from whatever Maine had become, then maybe Carolina would be okay.  
  
‘Maybe she would hunt you down to the ends of the galaxy and bathe in your blood if she had lived,’ Omega continued, hissing quietly as he expanded his reach in Tex’s mind.  
  
She pushed him back, her own hold over their shared body stronger than his had ever been. But it had been weakening. First when Carolina collapsed in the training room, and now, her hands shaking in rage as she turned to look back at the Director. Her husband in another life. He stood with an air of disappointment, the Alpha unit tucked safely under his arm. Price had more expression than the Director, even from this distance his shock evident.  
  
She could redirect the anger, and try to defeat Maine and all of his AIs. But she had failed so much today already, even with Omega’s waves of anger, Texas didn’t know if she had the will to continue fighting. Not today.  
  
Agent Maine put his helmet back on, the tattoo down the back of his head that combined the Greek letters of the named AI slowly disappearing as he slipping the armor back into place. He held his head in his hands, a hoarse growl emanating from his suit. Tex couldn’t tell if it was Sigma or Maine who had made the noise, but she didn’t have time to decide. Maine gave his head a shake, stretching his hands and shoulders as the multiple AI adjusted to his mind and body.  
  
Texas surprised herself as she leaned into a sprint, instinct and logic driving her from another fight. Emotionally, she couldn’t process another fight. The grief of losing both her love and her daughter clouding every calculation and estimate. Rationally, she had only a slim chance of beating Maine and his AI in her current state. Besides being mentally drained from the events of the day, her suit was not invulnerable to the blunt force trauma from the crash, and was barely running on reserves after the energy it took to place herself in a session with the Alpha while keeping Omega in lockdown so as to not abandon her body to his control.  
  
Beyond her limitations, Maine’s advantages outweighed her own. He had three AI and had worked closely with Sigma for quite a while. Maybe if she let Omega take control during the fight, and maybe if there was enough dysfunction between the three AI and Maine’s own mind and body, she could succeed. But to what end? Kill Agent Maine, and return the AI to the Director? To allow herself to be taken back, a prisoner of her own allies? To allow the torture of the Alpha to continue and be powerless to stop it, this one chance used and lost?  
  
So, she ran. She could not feel the cold, or the pain, or the hunger, or the thirst that Maine would feel as he pursued her. Two AI in one body was more favorable odds than a ship of fully armed soldiers, a small army, that happened to have a few AI among their ranks. Maine would either die pursuing her or survive long enough to grow stronger. She sincerely hoped it was the former, for the sake of her friends.


	2. Oof That's Not Good

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That feel when the author is projecting her own recent experiences with frostbite and hypothermia on the MC.

She wasn’t dead. Which was unfortunate, because people who are not dead tend to feel what falling several stories feels like. Carolina had landed flat on her back, the powdery snow only doing so much to cushion the fall. Landing on her back had displaced her weight enough so that her unprotected skull didn’t shatter on impact, but without her helmet her head hurt terribly, and she could feel the warm sting of blood drip down her neck. Her spine, luckily, had no obvious signs of injury. Unfortunately, it seemed to be the only set of bones that hadn’t been injured in some manner. Her ribs ached, her right leg a firework display of pain behind closed eyelids. She was likely bleeding internally, but at least her lungs seemed to have survive unpunctured by the shattered ribs.  
  
She was alive. For now. Convincing herself to move was the most difficult part. Several feet deep in the snow, the wind chill had decreased considerably, and without her HUD, she had no way to adjust her suit’s temperature. Its life support would keep the suit a cozy 60˚F (about 16˚C), but in this wet snow, hypothermia would quickly take her. Part of her just wanted to curl up and wait for…something. The sweet release of death. Rescue. Anything to make the hurt stop.  
  
Carolina laid there for quite a long time, the shock of the fall slowly subsiding, replaced by the panic and anger and fear that those last moments had instilled in her fragmented mind. Maine had taken her AI. Maine had thrown her off the cliff. Not Tex. Maybe he was working with her? But why?  
  
Carolina wouldn’t have called him her friend, but they certainly weren’t strangers. They had worked together on several assignments, sparred and trained together. She would tease him for his fear of heights and he would mumble a quiet remark about her (former) fear of spider. They knew each other well in combat and besides it. Carolina knew Maine. She knew he wouldn’t do something like this. But he had done it anyway. And she was scared.  
  
Every thought was like an icy needle probing her brain, the agony unbearable. She could only focus on one train of thought so for long before she could feel the imprint her AI had left. The empty sadness of Eta’s crying, Iota’s sudden enthusiasm still lingering in her memories and blurring her consciousness. She needed a plan.  
  
It’s hard to come up with a plan when it hurts to think, but it was becoming apparent immediate rescue wasn’t in her future as the persistent flurry slowly buried her where she lay. Carolina rolled to her side, shifting to keep her broken leg from moving around too much. The snow fell off her face in half melted chunks, her skin still warm enough to turn most of the snowflakes into icy droplets.  
  
It took a lot of effort and concentration on her part to even move that little bit, so she laid there for moment to reorient herself. She focused on how her breath melted the snow a little bit more with each exhale. A plan. She was several feet down in the snow, but it was rather compact. She would have to climb out, and even then, she would have to crawl through the heavy snow, which was no easy feet for an uninjured person.  
  
Carolina first tested her seemingly uninjured leg, lifting and stretching to feel if anything had been torn or bruised too badly to use. She sat up slowly, her spine making an awful grinding sound as the vertebrae shifted, but nothing hurting worse than it had when she was lying still. The Freelancer spent a moment staring at her shaking hands, the numbing cold making it difficult to even make a solid fist. She hoped she had enough grip to climb out of this snow bank.  
  
Getting to her feet took longer than expected. There was trial and error of how much she could move her broken leg before the pain was too much. After many attempts, she finally managed to get herself wedged against the wall of the snow bank for support, her face glazed with frozen tears.  
  
Carolina was shivering violently, making it difficult to make handholds in the snow above her. Without her right leg, her left could only be used for support, and she would have to rely almost entirely on her upper body strength to climb out. The sky was only a few feet above her head, but it was still an intimidating feat for someone as injured as she.  
  
The hardest part was finding the energy and strategy to begin. First, she would have to jump a little to get a stable grip on the handholds she had carved as high as she could reach from the ground. It would her hurt injured leg. A lot. Her uninjured leg would have to dig into the snow bank enough to stabilize her so that she could use one hand at a time to make new handholds, repeat the process, and then pull herself onto the snow above.  
  
Eventually there was nothing to do but begin. The first jump went well. She had enough momentum to get her left foot lodged into the snowbank, and her hands cooperated long enough to carve two new grips above her. But now her arms were shaking. While a well-rounded soldier, Carolina had focused more on speed than strength. She shook any doubt from her mind, ignoring the numbing pins and needles in her fingers.  
  
The second jump didn’t go so smoothly, her left hand slowed by the cold and her right grabbing a little too high to snag the handhold perfectly. Her left leg flailed, the tilt of having only one less than stable handhold throwing her to one side. Carolina muffled a sob as her right leg smashed against the wall of the snow bank, the taste of blood filling her mouth as she bit her tongue and focused on getting her left handhold.  
  
Finally stabilized, she hung for a moment, her joints and gravity locking her in place as she caught her breath. The gentle white clouds of her uneven breathing reminded her of some vague childhood memory of waiting on a grey city street, bundled in a heavy blue coat with mittens and scarves. The wind above howled, reminding her she needed to keep moving.  
  
With one final jump, she clawed at the softer, less compact snow on the surface. The wind stung her face, biting at her ears and nose. Carolina was forced to close her eyes, the snow like shards of glass in the wind. She hung there for a second, gently swinging herself to get her good leg high enough to snag the edge. Thankfully, it caught, and in spite of the agonizing spasm in her right leg, she rolled onto her stomach and rested. She had no time to rest.  
  
Above snow fell from the heavy grey clouds, the large flakes buffeting against the cliffside beside her and quickly collecting on her unprotected face. Already she could feel her face numbing, the blood from her cuts frozen, though a few red flecks from her mouth dotted the pristine white snow. She needed to move.  
  
Visibility was low in the growing blizzard, the cliff to her right barely visible. Carolina shuffled herself carefully to the wall, leaning against it for support as she tried to make out any kind of landmark. The horizon and ground were both the same white, the snow blurring the line between sky and land. However, somewhere down the cliff wall, there was…something. A small lump of darkness surrounded by the same white snow as everything else. So, that’s where she crawled.  
  
Crawling is not an effective mode of locomotion for an adult human. Their arms are too short and their legs too long, and if one leg cannot be used, they move like a hastily assembled tripod, skidding bit by bit towards their destination with abrupt stops and a confused gait. Their head isn’t meant to be craned at an impossible angle to simply see where they are going, and in deep snow their progress is even slower and clumsier than normal.  
  
It was slow going, but Carolina was getting closer to the dark spot, it growing in clarity and size to reveal the mouth of a small cave. It might not have even been big enough to crawl into, but it was better than remaining exposed to the elements. She stopped to rest several times, her injured leg refusing to numb the blinding pain in spite of the still dropping temperature as the storm’s full strength approached, the wind sending her hair in every direction.  
  
Above, a chunk of ice and snow, probably no larger than a bowling ball, broke free from the cliff edge in the wind. The blow to the back was excruciating, the dull ache of her spine ignited to a blaze of pins and needles in a split second. The whole weight of the snow was probably no heavier than a halfhearted punch from training sessions, but it hurt nonetheless. She screamed.  
  
Carolina hadn’t screamed when Maine threw her off the cliff. She didn’t cry out when her injured leg was regularly agitated by every movement. But this was a new degree of pain. The muscles in her good leg spasmed, dropping her lower body to the ground and landing awkwardly on her broken leg. She couldn’t do anything but grit her teeth and wait for the initial wave of pain to subside.  
  
Her breathe seethed through clenched teeth as she tried to test her left leg, but it refused to respond. The tears were freezing almost as quickly as they fell, clouding her vision with the icy film that formed on her eyelashes. She risked falling completely to the snow by using a hand to quickly wipe away the tears. The cave was so close. Just a few more body lengths away. She could make it.  
  
Now without her “good” leg, Carolina army crawled through the snow to avoid jostling her body back and forth, which would only agitate her spine and injured leg further. In spite of the short distance, it took her nearly as long to reach the cavern as it took to go from where she fell to where she had been struck by that block of ice and snow.  
  
The cave itself was wide and deep, the mouth shrunk over years as a snow drift built itself along it. She had to excavate some of the freshly fallen powder from the opening to make it large enough to crawl through, and then had to slowly make her way down the rather steep embankment inside the cave. Carolina was safe, at least from the storm.  
  
The temperature inside the cave was only an improvement from the cutting windchill, her hands still numb and clumsy and her face lacking any feeling as she tried to grimace at her predicament. Her ears had stopped hurting hours ago. But the cave was an improvement. She wouldn’t die and be buried in snow, instead, her frozen corpse would be preserved in excellent condition for years to come.  
  
In basic training, they taught every soldier the bare minimum for their survival. Three minutes without air, three hours without shelter, and so on. Thus far, Carolina had survived past the three-hour limit on the unrelenting ice of the planet, but she was no where near safe. Her shelter was lacking, the edibility of the alien planet’s snow as a water substitute questionable, and her energy depleted.  
  
She was exhausted. So…so fucking tired. Yes, her mind was awake, trying to determine how much snow she would have to eat to stay hydrated, running through the days she had left before starvation set in, but her body was already drained. Even as she propped herself up against a wall away from the snowy entrance to the cave, her lower limbs were still a disconnected tangle of pain and agonizing numbness. She was still shivering, but barely. That wasn’t good.  
  
Every instinct in her body begged her to close her eyes. Just for a minute. To listen to the wind and snow and smell the dry, cold air. She wanted to. So badly she wanted to. She was tired. She was confused. No one had come for her. The Director hadn’t sent anyone for her. He had abandoned her. Her best friend had turned on her. Her colleagues and comrades had betrayed her. And for what purpose? Did they know Maine was going to try to kill her? Nothing made sense. And she was tired. So she closed her eyes, just for a minute, just to rest them.  
  
“Hey! Look!” A voice called out. Something in her brain recognized it. It was too loud, echoing sharply through the cave. It annoyed her. Why couldn’t he just shut up and let her sleep? She was too fucking tired to argue, though, when a pair of footsteps drew near.  
  
“Hey, you okay – oh shit, you’re, oh, fuck, Mike! Give me hand, quick,” This voice was different, she hadn’t heard this one before. She flinched away as an icy glove pressed its fingers to her neck, the bruise from Maine’s hand still fresh. “She’s gotta pulse! That’s good, now…” The voices were fading away, her hearing focused on the screaming wind outside. The pain was fading too. Carolina welcomed the sleep, well aware it may have been the embrace of death.


	3. The Sextuplets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Writing characters with less than three episodes of content...is hard...

“Can I _please _use the sniper rifle? Just for a second?”__  
  
“T, for the last time, there’s absolutely _nothing _to see. Just snow, and ice, and more snow.” Sherry replied, this conversation a near clone of the past four hundred times Terrill had asked for the gun.__  
  
“What’s the harm of me lookin’ then?”  
  
“Please, just let him look, for like, two seconds.” Vera said softly, shivering from the doorway. “He’ll stop asking that way.”  
  
“He’s drunk! I wouldn’t trust those shaking hands with a pair of scissors, let alone a gun. Besides, you just got up, and your ability to make clear decisions is compromised-”  
  
“Sher, please,”  
  
The Ex-Charon soldier sighed and handed the sniper rifle gingerly to her colleague. Terrill tested its weight in his hands, carefully examining the weapon. Sherry and Vera locked eyes, carrying on a silent debate as to who was in the right as the other solider muttered about the scope.  
  
“Fuck!” He shouted, recoiling from the gun as if it had been fired. “Holy fucking shit! A ship!”  
  
“What?” The two women asked in sync, looking to each other then to Terrill.  
  
“Let me see,” Sherry said, taking the gun from her friend. In the distance, behind the mountains, a plume of black smoke trailed through the sky. It could have been a crashed ship, or it could have been the clouds of the incoming blizzard finally visible on the horizon. “You sure it was ship?”  
  
“What else crashes through the atmosphere on fire and smoking like Vera’s poor excuse of a cake?”  
  
“Hey!” The girls said simultaneously, this time simply glaring down at their comrade.  
  
“Well, it’s true, and that definitely was a ship! You can see the smoke without the damn rifle.” Vera nodded in agreement, the black plume still swirling in the distance.  
  
“If it was, there’s nothing we can do.” Sherry said solemnly, lowering the scope. “We don’t have the supplies to fix a ship, and that bad storm will be rolling in any minute now.”  
  
“What about survivors?” Vera asked, eyes still trained on the distant darkness. “They’ll definitely die without protection.”  
  
“If they’re smart, they’ll stay with their ship until the storm blows over. Whenever that’ll be.”  
  
“Yeah but what if they’ve got communication?” The two women turned to Terrill, the young man shifting anxiously in the snow. “They might radio for help and get a transport outta here. Maybe we could hitch a ride,”  
  
“Assuming their tech can reach somebody all the way out here and assuming they’ll help us,”  
  
“Never said we had to do this nicely,”  
  
“Terrill!”  
  
“All I’m sayin’ is that they’ve got a ship and maybe some communication. If they won’t help us, a few good soldiers of the UNSC, then maybe they aren’t the friendly type,”  
  
“Did you get a good look at the ship as it went down? Did it look, uh, alien? Or…piratey?”  
  
“…nah, sorry, it was just a blur of black metal and fire. Don’t even know how bad the damage was,”  
  
“We should tell the others, vote on what to do,” Vera said heading back into the base.  
  
“You can’t be serious, a vote? When was the last time we voted on anything without it ending in more bullet holes in the bed sheets?” Sherry snapped with exasperation, shaking her head.  
  
“We voted on who should drink the last of the alcohol when we eventually ran out,”  
  
“T, the only alcohol that’ll be left would be medical grade,”  
  
“Yup, and I won the votes,”  
  
“You do understand it will blind you. Maybe kill you.” Sherry sighed as Terrill nodded his head triumphantly.  
  
“At least I’ll go out happy,”  
  


* * *

____

____

“Alright, so, we’ll split into teams of two. If something is wrong, you’ve got two flare guns per team. Follow known paths. We should have a few routes to around the area the ship crashed, but they might not be exact, so stay on the path unless you absolutely cannot.

If someone or a team isn’t back at the base in six hours, we’ll mount a search party as long as the storm doesn’t break. If the blizzard gets here before then, turn back if you’ve got time, hunker down in the caves if not. I packed everybody snacks and liquid water – Mike, those are for later, not now – as well as some first aid for emergencies and fire candles to keep warm.

One team should stay at base where they can keep watch for flares – they’ll be like Command and keep watch for any other ships. Another team will take the west route, behind the mountain. You won’t be able to see the storm approach as well from there, so I’ve got a map with caves marked where you can wait it out in case it breaks. Only use the marked caves. The other’s may not be stable. The last team will follow the mountain and cut through the tunnels to reach the ship on the other side. Make sure you stick to the mountain but keep an eye out for avalanches. Sound like a plan?”

Darryl managed to sum up the last hour or so of bickering and debates following a vote to search for survivors. Luckily, no one had been hurt in the process, save for Ezra’s dignity and Sherry’s pride.

“So…what are the teams?” The former asked, glancing around the room. Darryl turned to Ezra, hands on his hips.

“I have no idea, Sherry and Vera? You guys, are like, sort of in charge, and you know us best.”

“I think we should split it up so one red and one blue is in each team.” Sherry nodded to Vera’s suggestion.

“Yeah, and since Ezra and Darryl are the two with medical training, I think Ezra and Terrill should be a team and Darryl and Mike.”

“Absolutely not!” Darryl huffed shuffling away from Mike. “Ezra knows Mike better, and you can… handle him better than I can, besides, you have as much medical training as Ezra, and you’d be able to help survivors, uh, psychologically,” Sherry looked her comrade up and down, crossing her arms.

“You just don’t want to leave the base, you’re still scared after that time you got lost in the caves. Plus, subconsciously, you don’t really want to go back to the UNSC, because you’re terrified of what our return will mean for the government that tried to quietly kill us,”

Sherry understood her friend’s fear. Going back to the UNSC after a failed…assassination, no, a failed attempt to eliminate problematic soldiers, would be almost suicidal. The mere fact that they were still alive after being abandoned was an afront to the UNSC’s competence and would draw to media attention their intentional attempt to kill off the soldiers.

“We don’t have to go back to the UNSC,” She said, attempting to comfort both herself and her friends. “I’ve got some family a few systems away, on Chorus. If the war hasn’t destroyed it, we can hang out there, start over, y’know?” The tension in the room dissipated slightly.

“Fine, but I’m not too keen on working with the village drunk,”

“Hey, I’ve only had a few drinks today! ‘Sides, it’s better than working with a stuck up prick like D,”

“Boys,” Vera barked, drawing the attention of the room. “Darryl and Mike, you’ll be Team A, you’ll take the back way around the mountains. Ezra, Terrill, you two are going to take the direct route and pass through the tunnels. Sherry and I can be Command. We’re both trained with sniper rifles. Sync?”

“…What?” Mike half whispered, staring at Vera.

“What do you mean ‘what’? Sync! That’s what Freelancers say on real missions, right?”

“Yeah, but we’re not-”

“Sync!” Vera shouted, cutting off Darryl.

“Sync,” The men responded dully.

“Move out soldiers,” Sherry commanded, the two women watching their friends march out of the meeting room.

“They’re gonna be necking this entire time, aren’t they?” Terrill said under his breath, aware Ezra could hear him.

“Oh, definitely,”

* * *

“Mike, please,” Darryl sighed, rubbing his temples. Which would work better if he wasn’t wearing a helmet. “We just left five minutes ago, we don’t need a snack break,”  
  
“Yeah, but I’m hungry,”  
  
“Well, you’re going to be even more hungry when we’re on our way back five hours from now,”  
  
“Right!”  
  
“…So?”  
  
“If I eat the food now then I won’t be hungry later,”  
  
“That’s not how – stars why do I even try – just, don’t complain when you’re starving later,”  
  
“Except I won’t be! Because I ate my snacks before-”  
  
“Whatever, I get it, just, don’t freeze your ears off.”  
  
The two had made exceptional time, the base already a shrinking scar of black in the distant fields of white. With the mountain to their right and the twin suns to their left, B Team was slightly warmer than A Team must have been. Still, Darryl knew that on the other side of the mountain face was a swirling storm ready to mercilessly bury them. Even now snow swirled through the air, the wind spilling over the mountain as a gentle breeze.  
  
They hadn’t actually been walking for five minutes – their time was much closer to two hours – but progress still felt slow. Too slow. Darryl nervously glanced at the map of caves, constantly searching for the nearest shelter and gauging the time they would have to reach a known haven if the storm suddenly breached the mountain.  
  
It became a regular routine for Darryl as the hours passed. Sky, map, caves, Mike. Four variables he needed to account for. He didn’t need to worry too much about where they were headed, as long as they followed the mountain cliff they would get close enough to go to the wreck by sight alone.  
  
Sky, map, caves, Mike. His partner had finally put his helmet back on, the suit humming softly as the temperature controls regulated themselves. Sky, map, caves, Mike. The nearest “safe” cave was about a quarter mile behind them, the next another two miles. Sky, map, caves, Mike. The sky was getting darker, the twin suns setting earlier with each passing day. Their hemisphere of the planet was approaching winter. Sky, map, caves. Where was Mike?  
  
“Mike?” Darryl asked, looking around frantically. How could a whole person disappear so suddenly? “Mike! Where are you?” The wind was picking up, carrying the now broken storm over the mountain, snowflake by heavy snowflake. Panic was setting in.  
  
Common sense overriding the fear, Darryl located his friend’s footprints in the deep snow. He just needed to find Mike before the storm buried the trail. In his scramble to race after the path, Darryl fell into the snow, the map caught by the wind. He couldn’t even bother a hopeless cry as the map fluttered through the air then disappeared across the snowy plains.  
  
The trail led to a cave that Darryl knew wasn’t a “safe” cavern. The stalactites hung precariously over the icy floor, which was pitted with the remnants of the heavy formations that had fallen years ago under their own weight. Of course, there was Mike, helmet off, licking a stalagmite near the back of the chamber.  
  
“Darryl! You made it!” The former Freelancer called across the room, his voice a little too loud for comfort. Yelling was not a good idea. A stalactite a few feet from the former Charon soldier fell to the ground, shattering across the floor. If not for his helmet, Darryl would no longer have his right eye. More cautiously, Darryl stepped towards Mike, hands outstretched in wariness.  
  
“Mike,” Darryl said, voice teetering between softness and frustration. “Put your helmet back on, and be /quiet/.”  
  
“Okay!”  
  
“Mike,”  
  
“Right,” He said more quietly, putting his helmet back on. The cave opened up into a small tunnel, barely large enough for the two of them, but at least it wasn’t full of ceiling spears. Darryl made his way to the tunnel, and Mike followed. The former finally released a breath he didn’t know he was holding when they were both safe in the alcove.  
  
“Why did you run off like that?”  
  
“Like what?”  
  
“You just, left. And you went in a cave that wasn’t on the map!”  
  
“How do you know it’s not on the map?”  
  
“It wasn’t on the map!”  
  
“Show me,”  
  
“I – I would, if I hadn’t dropped the map running after you!” Darryl did not like having the former Freelancer as a partner for this time sensitive mission, but Mike flinched away from the tone, and the ex-Charon soldier felt a twinge of regret.  
  
“Sorry,” Mike mumbled, shifting from foot to foot. “The storm was coming, I could feel it in my bones, and I thought I told ya we needed to find cover. Must’ve…thought about telling you but then forgot to actually tell you so in the end I thought I told you even though I hadn’t told you, you know? I thought you were right behind me.” Darryl sighed deeply, guilt biting his bones.  
  
“It’s alright, nobody got hurt or anything. Just scared me, that’s all. I’m sorry I snapped at you, thought you had gotten lost in the caves and would starve to death or something.” Darryl looked across the stalagmite and stalactite filled cavern to the entrance, which was now nothing but a sheet of blizzard blown snow. “Maybe it was a good thing you ran in here, better in here than out there,”  
  
“Yeah,” Mike replied, a comfortable silence settling on the two.  
  
“Mike?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“Why did you…lick the cave?”  
  
“It’s salt,”  
  
“What?”  
  
“Salt,” Mike repeated, tapping the floor of the cave with his boot. “The planet may be coated in snow and ice but the rock foundation of this mountain is salt crystals. It just tasted good.” An explanation, but it only brought more questions.  
  
“Did you know it was salt before you licked it?”  
  
“…No.”  
  
“Then why did you lick it?”  
  
“…”  
  
“Were you hungry maybe?”  
  
“Perhaps,”  
  
“I told you to save your snacks for later,” Darryl said, a smile on his face that Mike couldn’t see through his visor. “Here, you can have some of mine, I’m good for now-” Darryl groped around in his pack for a moment, but could only feel medical supplies. “Fuck,”  
  
“What?”  
  
“I packed snacks for everybody but me,”  
  
“Oh,”  
  
“Yeah,”  
  
This mission was going wrong with increasingly concerning frequency. What was that old Earth rule? Murphy’s Law or something? The storm had hit, they were in an uncharted cave with no map, no food, and they hadn’t found any survivors. And now Mike was wandering down the tunnel –  
  
“Wait! Mike, we should wait here. We can shoot off a flare or wait for the rescue team- ”  
  
“It’s a straight tunnel, it’s not like we’re going to get lost,” Mike said, his voice starting to fade as he walked deeper into the tunnel. Darryl reluctantly turned on his helmet’s headlamp, and used his knife to carve a marker in the wall.  
  
This continued for quite a while, Darryl stopping periodically to mark the wall of the cave in case they managed to get lost (which would not be hard for two of the “worst soldiers”). At least until the tunnel split.  
  
“Which way?” Darryl asked out loud, watching Mike begin walking down the left. “How do you know we should go this way?” Darryl notched the intersection and marked the left tunnel as he followed.  
  
“There’s a draft, fresh air.”  
  
“Really? How can you tell?”  
  
“Just can,”  
  
Darryl wasn’t quite sure how much he should trust Mike’s intuition, but it hadn’t gotten them killed so far. It had lost their map, and gotten them stuck in an unexplored subterranean cave system, but the intuition of the former Freelancer hadn’t killed anyone. Not yet. And now, this path seemed to lead towards light, the cavern lightening to the point that Darryl could turn off his headlamp.  
  
“Hey, look!” Mike said, standing very still where the light was the brightest. Darryl approached, then broke into a sprint upon seeing the unmistakable armor of a UNSC soldier.  
  
“Hey, you okay – oh shit, you’re, oh, fuck, Mike! Give me a hand, quick,” Upon closer inspection, the woman was bleeding profusely from their side, the red streaking down the teal (maybe aquamarine?) armor. Her right leg was clearly broken, the knee twisted unnaturally, and her ears and lips were blue to black from the cold. Her eyes were closed, but small clouds of white billowed from her bloody nose. Still, the anxious mantra of ‘Don’t be dead don’t be dead don’t be dead’ ran through Darryl’s racing mind as he felt for her pulse. Even with his gloved hand, her pulse was strong and clear.  
  
“She’s gotta pulse! That’s good, now, Mike,” Darryl said, laying out his bag of medical supplies. He had enough wound gel to stop the bleeding, at least until they made it back to base. “Mike, I need you to hold this,” Luckily, the blood transfusion bag hadn’t frozen.  
  
The other man shuffled forward with an uncharacteristic caution, as if he were approaching something rabid and dangerous rather than an unconscious and terribly injured young woman. Darryl held out the transfusion with more urgency, which spurred Mike to take the blood bag as the other soldier prepped an IV. Still, the former Freelancer stared, deaf to Mike mutterings about “bad veins” and prayers to some entity that she survive.  
  
Mike knew her. He knew that turquoise armor. That red hair.  
  
“C…Carrie? No, no…Coraline?” Mike whispered to himself, trying to remember that name. That name at the very top of that leaderboard Vera so loved. Darryl looked up from his work, the transfusion finally in and the wound gel applied.  
  
“She’s from the same project as you?”  
  
“I think… yes, I think so,”  
  
“So, she’d be a state, like how you were Iowa, right?”  
  
“Yeah,”  
  
“So, like the Carolinas?”  
  
“Carolina, yeah, that’s her name.” Mike looked at this small, broken, bloody woman. “Carolina.”

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not dead yet. HTML is hard. Happy new year! Special thanks to SeCrFiDr for commenting and leaving kudos! As well as a thank you to BlueTeamChurch, Lepord257, DocTokuMA, Death7559, Yin, and three Guests for leaving kudos as well! (Don't worry y'all we'll get to the hurt/comfort/fluff and stuff part of this story in a bit)


	4. Losers and Lesbians

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherry and Vera are the softest and chillest lesbians ever.

“I…bet…huh…the B Team…doesn’t…ugh… have to work this… hard to reach the space ship,” Terrill said between heaving breaths, following Ezra up the steep cliff.  
  
The travel through the valley was no problem. They had encountered neither avalanches nor any of the many dangerous fauna of the ice planet. Likely because the animals could feel the storm coming, and weren’t going to hazard their life for a small human snack.  
  
“It’s the same amount of ‘work,’ they walk a farther distance, we cover a shorter distance but have to get past this,” Ezra looked down at his partner, watching the other man scramble for foot holds. “You guys have a climbing wall or anything? Before you were sent here?”  
  
“No, but I’m guessing you did, it shows,” Terrill spat bitterly as he rested on a ledge, barely lifting his head to watch Ezra scale the next section of ice and stone.  
  
“Yeah, the Mother of Invention had great training rooms, equipment, only the best for the best, you know? Which, uh, is why I’m here and not there,” The other man said, voice trailing to a mutter as he hoisted himself over the last ledge. Terrill had stopped for a drink break. “If you fall off this damn cliff I am not dragging your drunk ass back up this stupid ice sheet,”  
  
“Ezzie, you know I hold my liquor better than that, just need to loosen up a little is all,”  
  
“Any looser and you’ll fall two stories,”  
  
“Shhh…” Terrill said, waving off his friend’s concern as he climbed the last few meters to the cliff top. “See? Not dead,” Ezra had to reach out, more for his own security than Terrill’s, to make sure the man didn’t lean backwards and fall headfirst down the sheet of ice.  
  
“Yeah, not dead, for now,” The former Freelancer looked over the wall of the mountain to the distant smoking wreckage. “Let’s see what we’ve got,”  
  
The wreck had landed on a plateau, thankfully not precariously balanced on the ledge that was carved out by the wind beneath the mountain. It was a lower part of the same mountain system that the former soldiers called home, still above the icy fields of nothingness that spanned across the planet but far below their current elevation. The plateau sloped downward onto the plains, however, and something was-  
  
“How come I never get to use the sniper rifle?”  
  
“You literally just did, like, two hours ago,”  
  
“Yeah, but now you’re using it, and you’re the worst shot, like, ever,”  
  
“Yeah, that’s what we’re counting on,” Ezra said, laying down on the icy ground to better position the rifle. “We’re just gonna look, see what we’re dealing with, no killing,”  
  
“Better be killing if it’s those damn aliens,”  
  
“Shhh…I need to focus,” There was a beat of silence between the two, but Terrill could see Ezra’s hands shaking.  
  
“I’m not looking,” He said, turning around to look at the bridge. “Promise,” The muttered thanks was nearly silent, but Terrill could hear the gun’s metal stop clicking against armor as Ezra stopped trembling.  
  
The twin suns were almost blocked out by the swirling clouds, but Terrill could tell they were steadily setting. Shorter days had been the trend as of late, he had noticed, and the storms worse too. This particular storm had been building for days, the pressure decreasing more and more as the front moved in. They probably only had a few more hours until-  
  
“Terrill?”  
  
“Yeah?”  
  
“How…do you imagine a space pirate looks?”  
  
“Uh, hook for a hand? Maybe an alien bird-”  
  
“Seriously,” Ezra snapped, voice tight. Terrill looked over his shoulder, squinting across the barren fields of snow to try and decipher their quarry.  
  
“Uh, I don’t know, probably weird armor, ‘cause it wouldn’t be UNSC regulation?”  
  
“Would they…be running?”  
  
“Uh, maybe? If someone’s chasing them – hey, wait up!” Terrill said, his friend already sliding down the slippery slope to the plains. As it turns out, it is much easier to slide down ice than climb up it in bulky armor, so Terrill was able to keep up with Ezra. “What’s going on?”  
  
“Oh, right, uh,” Ezra pointed to the dark dot that was rapidly approaching them. “Uh, I don’t know them, but…something or someone is chasing them,”  
  
“Well was it alien or a person?”  
  
“I don’t know! I think they saw me and I got nervous-”  
  
“How could someone see us from that far away?”  
  
“I don’t know! Look, they’re in trouble, or something, so either way,” Ezra skidded to a stop, the mysterious person in black armor now close enough to see the glint of their visor. “You get the sniper rifle,” Terrill looked from the weapon, to his friend, then back at the gun.  
  
“Fuck yeah! Finally!”  
  
This was the last thing Terrill remembered. Ezra was conscious to see the person in dark armor smash into his friend at full speed, to which the still standing soldier could only sputter a string of curses. The stranger skidded to a stop, snow spraying from their boots. They looked to Ezra.  
  
“Fuck, fuck, fuck – wait!”  
  
This was the last thing Ezra remembered. The stranger swiftly took the rifle from him and knocked him out cold with it. They looked from the two unconscious men, to the fast approaching orange dot on the horizon.  
  


* * *

Tex didn’t _mean _to hit that soldier while running at a steady 50 klicks per hour, but that’s what she had done. She hadn’t been processing what was in front of her, with the main focus being what was behind her. And the Meta was gaining fast.__  
  
Knocking out the second one was Omega’s idea – well, his instinct – but she couldn’t complain. He could have shot her, not that he handled that rifle well enough to even come close, but he could have. Tex looked from the two sleeping soldiers then back to the Meta.  
  
They didn’t have AI, at least as far she could tell, but that didn’t mean the Meta would simply ignore them. She couldn’t exactly take them back to wherever their base was, it would be a massacre. But she couldn’t leave them there either, the Meta was just curious enough and confident enough that he would find their base on his own.  
  
‘Could always just kill them now, so he doesn’t get the pleasure of it,’ Omega growled from within her mind. Tex ignored him. But that didn’t make the offer any less tempting. It certainly would be easier and faster to bury bodies than hide sleeping men.  
  
The Meta was getting closer.  
  


* * *

Ezra woke up first. It was only natural, he was only punched out. Terrill had been, in essence, hit by a truck. This fact did not make his head throb any less as he tried to sit up.  
  
“What…the…ugh, T, you with me?” Ezra mutter, vision blinking in and out as he crawled to his knees. “Terrill?” His vision wasn’t any better, darkness creeping in on the thin beams of light like rust eating at iron. Ezra reach around himself, relieved to feel Terrill’s helmet nearby. “T,” He said, shaking what he assumed was a shoulder gently, but urgently, “T, get the fuck up, I can’t see shit and – fuck – this hurts.”  
  
No response.  
  
“Terrill, I’m serious, I’m kinda freaking out right now,” Ezra said, shaking the soldier beside him harder. The mumbled grunt that escaped the person beside him was a welcome one. “T, we gotta get up, the storm’s probably here-”  
  
“Did you…get the registration number of that mongoose that hit me? Was it Mike? Again?"  
  
“I…It wasn’t… T I can’t see anything, I think I might puke, fuck, everything’s spinning.” Ezra could hear a weak wheeze beside him as Terrill shifted, sitting up.  
  
“I’m here you blue bastard, damn, chill. I think my arm’s broken, and my ribs,” Terrill hissed, his left arm awkwardly angled in his armor and his ribs aching with each breath. “What happened to you?”  
  
“Fuck if I know, I think the person who ran into you must have hit me so hard I just-”  
  
“Wait, slow down, a _person _hit me? Like, a flesh and blood human? You sure it wasn’t, like, some android…maybe part shark…super soldier thingy”__  
  
“They were wearing human armor!” Ezra lurched to the side, cradling his head in his hands, “Shit, man, I don’t think I can stand up,” The nausea was overwhelming.  
  
“Take it easy Ezra, my legs feel fine, I’ll just,” Terrill struggled to his knees, breathing slow and shallow, “Fuck it, where’s the damn flare gun? Your pack?”  
  
“Yeah,” Ezra muttered, keeping his head down. His friend quickly found the flare gun, and looked up to fire it.  
  
“What the fuck,”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You make this?”  
  
“Make what?”  
  
“We’re in a fucking igloo man,”  
  
“…okay?”  
  
“You know what? I’ve had weirder days.” Terrill placed a hand on Ezra’s arm, hoping he was being reassuring. “I’ll be right back, just gotta put up a flare for the girls to see so they can pick us up in the mongoose,” The soft whimper of acknowledgement was enough for Terrill to crawl out of the shelter, muttering to himself, “Hope those ladies aren’t playing tonsil hockey right now,”  
  


* * *

“What do you think they’d say if they could see us now?”

“Terrill would pretend to be all bent outta shape but he'd secretly be happy, Darryl would say ‘finally,’ Mike would ask about the wedding, and, uh, Ezra would be happy for you even if he is still head over heels,”

“You think?”

“Yeah,”

“Think they know?”

“About us?”

“Yeah,”

“Absolutely, we aren’t exactly subtle,”

“I guess,”

“I kissed you last week, on the cheek, Darryl wouldn’t stop making couple jokes,”

“Sher?”

“Hm?”

“Do you think we should check on the boys?” Vera asked softly, head resting on the other woman’s shoulder. The two were curled up together in front of the heater, their makeshift loveseat of blankets and pillows creating a cozy scene. On top of the water heater, an old disk player and screen hummed, the movie one of the many sappy romantic comedies the base had in its stores.

“…do we have to?” Sherry whispered back, gently planting a kiss on her partner’s forehead. They had been doing this at every opportunity, just sitting together and watching whatever movie they felt. Sometimes this involved long make out sessions, especially at night. But today they were content just to cuddle by the warmth.

“We _did _say we would be command, and the storm is probably gonna break any minute now,” Vera said, slowly moving to get up. Sherry whimpered in disappointment, holding Vera’s hand to drag her back down into the pile of pillows.__

“Please? Just a few more minutes and the movie’ll be over,” Sherry said, big brown eyes pleading Vera for one more kiss. “I _know _you’d rather stay here,” Vera hummed in agreement, but pulled Sherry to her feet.__

“We should at least see how bad the storm is right now, see if we should call them back to base with a flare,” Vera said, pulling Sherry into a hug. The other woman gave a false pout of annoyance.

“Fine, but you have to kiss me first,” Sherry smiled as Vera’s face lit up, and she pulled her close enough for their foreheads to touch.

“You don’t even have to ask,”

Eventually, the two made their way back to the top floor of the base, looking out over the bridge. The path involved many stops, whether to put armor back on, wipe kisses from visors, and otherwise dote on one another. Unfortunately, the ice blast that came from the opening front door of the base froze any affections and advances.

The snow was falling, thick and heavy. It was already knee deep on the bridge, which they had previously kept shoveled clear for ease of walking. The sky was pale green, the little light that filtered through the heavy clouds reflected back from the snow to give the world an ominous glow.

A streak of red against the bleak horizon, a barely noticeable and faltering gleam of a dying flare high above the mountain. The A Team.

“Sher,”

“I’m on it,” The ex-Charon soldier responded, already sprinting down the snow covered stairs of the bridge. Vera followed in suit, the thick snow collecting on her visor as she stumbled after her friend to where the mongoose was parked.

The soldiers of the bridge had only one vehicle. The Charon soldiers had been left on the bridge for “observation” work before realizing they had been abandoned. The former Freelancers at least were given a form of transportation for their vague and unspecified mission of slow and silent death. Still, solar power was hard to come by for the mongoose, making its use limited to emergency response. For this reason a sled, mostly Ezra’s idea and Terrill invention, was made from scrap metal to work as extra seating to be attached to the mongoose, which barely seated two.

Sherry and Vera had to drive around the mountain, following what should have been B Team’s path to reach the source of the flare. They weren’t equipped to scale the cliff and reach the ledge.

“You see Mike and Darryl anywhere?” Vera yelled over the roar of the mongoose’s engine, peering over Sherry’s shoulder.

“I can’t see _shit _, I’m just following the wall,” Sherry called back, squinting through her visor to make out the thin line between the mountainside and the ground. “They probably headed back just as we were leaving, we just couldn’t see ‘em through the snow,”__

“Yeah,” Vera affirmed, more for her own peace of mind than for Sherry’s. “Probably,”

It only took them about half an hour to reach the front of the mountain, where Ezra and Terrill would have sent the flare. Sherry only made out the shelter by the fire candle flickering in the entrance.

“What the fuck,” She whispered to herself, slowing the mongoose and stopping just in front of the igloo. Vera hopped off first, scrambling through the deep snow to the snow hovel.

“Guys! You still kicking in there?” She yelled, ears still ringing from the ride.

“Shhh…” A muffled voice groaned from inside the igloo. Terrill crawled slowly out of the entrance, cradling his left arm to his side. Ezra followed, head low and hands shaking as Terrill spoke softly. “The fuck took y’all so long?”

“It’s not _our _fault the snow’s so deep-”__

“Vera, shush,”

“What?” Vera’s questioned went unanswered as Sherry approached Ezra, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“What happened?”

“Hell if I know,” Terrill responded, Vera helping him to his feet. “I got run over by something, Ezra got punched so hard his eyes stopped working,”

“He’s probably concussed,” Sherry said, turning back to Ezra. “Think you can get up?”

“…probably?” His response was slurred but slow. Gingerly, Sherry steadied him as he stood. “Oh that does _not _feel good,” He swayed a bit, but he wasn’t going to pass out.__

“Let’s get you guys back to base, Darryl can make sure there’s nothing permanent, and fix up your arm for you,” Sherry said, helping Ezra over to the sled where Terrill had already made himself comfortable.

“Good plan Sher,” He managed to mumble, leaning up against the cold metal of the makeshift gurney. “You find the B Team?”

“No,” Vera said, nervous eyes looking back to the mountainside. Or where it should have been. The snow was falling so thick and so fast she could barely make out the people around her.

“They probably headed back earlier, you know how Darryl’s always nervous about stuff like this. Better safe than sorry, like you poor suckers,” Sherry said with a small laugh, gently making sure Ezra was safely in the sled. “You two gonna be okay back there? The engine’s pretty loud,”

“I’ve got it,” Terrill said, reaching over to Ezra’s helmet, but the other man jerked away from the touch. “Easy buddy, just gonna turn off the audio processing, should keep things quieter,”

“…Can you sit closer? Just so I know where you are,” Ezra mutter, his voice holding a forced cheeriness, “Sucks bad enough to be blind, I wouldn’t much like it if I was deaf too,”

“No problem,” Terrill said, scooting closer, leaning on the freelancer’s shoulder. “Aight, I’m turning it off…now,”

“You guys situated back there?” Vera asked, sitting behind Sherry on the mongoose.

“Yup, we’re good to go,” Terrill responded, arm wrapped around his friend. “How we gonna get back in this though?”

“GPS, obviously,” Sherry said, laughing a little louder as the mongoose’s engine revved to life.

It was slow going in the storm, snow heavy and their speed slowed, both because of the added weight and to keep from jostling the new injured passengers. There were a few moments when the energy reserve light flickered on and Sherry could feel her heart beat faster, but soon enough the familiar shadow of the bridge passed over them. They made it.

The garage where the single vehicle was stored beneath the main tower of the bridge was already open, snow collecting in drifts inside as Sherry parked the mongoose and Terrill turned Ezra’s helmet back on.

“Did we leave the door open?” Vera asked softly, helping Terrill to his feet. Sherry only shrugged, flicking the switch that closed the heavy blast doors. The four soldiers made their way to med bay, each paired as one half carried half guided the other.

Sherry was, as usual, the first to notice the two sets of snowy boot prints leading down the corridor toward their own destination. Vera was the one who saw the trail of blood.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special shoutout to sharkdad for being hella cool and awesome and stuff. Also thanks to those who left kudos, such as Carbie, and those who have bookmarked this fic!


	5. Haircut

“I think she’s stable enough to move, but her core temperature is too low,” Darryl said, looking from ‘Carolina’ to the former Agent Iowa. Mike had been quiet, much quieter than usual. Darryl could only speculate how this was affecting his friend. It’s not every day you find your former coworker’s bloody body in a cave on an ice planet. “Mike?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“You helmet is compatible with her armor, but you’ll be at risk of frostbite if we leave-”  
  
“Okay,” Mike said, interrupting as he disconnected his helmet from his own armor. His eyes had a dullness to them Darryl had never seen, memories and thoughts swimming behind that blank expression in a troubled sea of emotion.  
  
“Mike,” Darryl said, hoping a sterner tone would break the soldier from his stupor. “You with me or what? If we’re going to help her, we need to be alert and focused.” Mike took a shaky breath, looking down at the helmet in his hands.  
  
“Okay,” He whispered, swallowing hard, repeating with more conviction. “Okay.”  
  
Darryl took the helmet from Mike and gently slipped it over the freelancer’s head, careful not to injure her any more than she already was. Immediately, the life support systems updated for her condition, and the armor hummed as it increased its temperature.  
  
“She needs medical attention, that wound gel isn’t fixing any internal bleeding,” Darryl said, watching the blood bag attached to her IV slowly decrease in volume. “We’re going to have to walk back to base,”  
  
“What about the flares?” Mike asked, but a blast of cold air from the small opening sent flurries of heavy snow into the cavern.  
  
“Snow’s too heavy, and if the girls are out there, they can’t see anything. They know it’d be safer for us to hunker down,”  
  
“But…we can’t, right? Carolina will…” Mike trailed off, that glassy film returning as he gazed upon the bloodstained aquamarine armor.  
  
“Right, but…I don’t know how we’re going to find our way back, not to mention we don’t have a stretcher to carry her on. If she has any kind of spinal injury we could end up paralyzing her, or worse.” Darryl said, sitting next to the unconscious woman. Her breathing was shallow and sticky. She wasn’t going to survive the entirety of the storm, not here.  
  
“I can get us back,” Mike said suddenly, voice animated and a smile lighting up his face. “I have a good sense of direction, I know the way back to base from here. I can get us back.” Darryl breathed slowly, restraining a sigh.  
  
“We still don’t have a way to stabilize her for the trip,”  
  
“Yes we do,”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“Freelancer armor,” Mike said, crouching next to Carolina, lifting her forward to reach the back of her armor. “Every suit is equipped with an ‘armor lock’ so…so the training room doesn’t get messy.” Mike shook away the flicker of paralyzing fear from his face. “Just need to switch it on manually…there, that should do it,” Darryl could hear a click, and then more, the armor locking in place.  
  
“That easy?”  
  
“I might have had to switch off something auxiliary, but it just seemed to be a status light or something, nothing connected to life support or anything,” Mike said, face bright as Darryl tested to see that the suit was really locked up. Indeed, she was stiffly frozen in the position she had sat in, legs gently bent but back straight.  
  
“Didn’t take you for the technical kind Mike, where’d you learn this stuff?” Darryl bit his lip when he saw Mike’s face fall.  
  
“At the Project, a while ago, just stuff they briefed us on when we joined,” His voice was tense, but he picked up Carolina gently. “We should go,”  
  
“Without your helmet, you’ll-”  
  
“It’s just some snow,” Mike said, smiling, “Besides, I think I know a shortcut,”  
  
They backtracked to the original cavern full of salt crystal stalactites and stalagmites. Snow drifts up to their knees had already accumulated at the entrance.  
  
“This way,” Mike said, voice uncharacteristically soft, leading down another tunnel on the other side of the cave. It was dark and winding, leading deeper into the unexplored interior of the cave system.  
  
“You sure?”  
  
“Always,”  
  
They walked for a long time. Darryl turned on his head lamp to help illuminate their twisting path as best he could from behind the two freelancer agents. The cavern was warm compared to the icy wind of the open cave, but it was slick and icy. There were a few close calls where Darryl feared Carolina had been hurt by a sudden slip, but nothing serious had been inflicted.  
  
How long they followed the tunnel was difficult to track. Being in a constant state of anxiety and caution already worsened Darryl’s poor perception of time. But, eventually, they reached another open cave, where the wind whipped up snow in thick waves. The mouth of the cave was small, heavy snow shrinking the opening with every burst from the storm above.  
  
“We have to leave here,” Mike said, cheeks already rosy from the chill. He could feel Darryl’s unease. “It’s not far. I’m sure,” The medic didn’t know how sane it was to trust the former freelancer’s ‘sense of direction’ in the deadly snow storm, but they didn’t have much of a choice. Carolina was running out of time. With a stiff nod from Darryl, Mike started out into the storm.  
  
If you have ever tried to run in snow deeper than your ankles, you know how quickly the two walking soldiers were exhausted. Their stiff pace was slowed to a crawl, Darryl keeping a hand on Mike’s shoulder to keep track of the soldier in the blinding snow. At one point Mike froze still, red ears listening to the wind and ice frosted eyes searching through the blizzard.  
  
“D-did you hear t-that?”  
  
Darryl stopped to listen, but his helmet muffled the already soft sounds of the surrounding snow. Nothing.  
  
“I don’t hear anything but the storm, Mike. And no, there are no ice spiders,” He shouted over the wind. The fear that his friend was succumbing to the cold struck icy fear in Darryl’s heart. “We need to get to the base, you wanna borrow my helmet for a bit? It isn’t compatible with your armor but it’s better than nothing,” Mike shook his head, more to shake snow from his eyelashes than to indicate an answer.  
  
“We’re almost there, I can feel it, just a little further.” Mike walked on, not stopping to answer Darryl’s offer.  
  
Sure enough, the glow of the Bridge shined through the darkness of the storm. Spurred by a new wave of energy, Darryl sprinted ahead of Mike and his passenger to open the garage door.  
  
“Come on, it’s warm,” Somewhere in the back of Darryl’s mind, he could smell the still fresh oil of the mongoose, but he was already running through treatment options for the injured woman cradled in Mike’s arms.  
  
Snow had accumulated on her armor, and the wound gel had frozen solid. But by freezing, it had torn at the flesh it once adhered to, and she was bleeding again. Mike followed Darryl’s hurried pace to the med bay. With the press of a button, the operating gravity table whirred to life.  
  
“Set her here, can you take off the armor lock? The artificial gravity should keep her still enough,” Darryl said, pulling up various screens and scanners at the med bay’s terminal. Mike complied, taking a moment to rub some color back into his waxy face. “Go warm yourself up a bit, by the heaters, I can’t be worried about more than one patient right now,”  
  
“’Kay,” Mike said, glancing back at Carolina. “I’ll be back soon,”  
  
Darryl set to work, spending a few moments contemplating where to begin. He had been in such a rush to get her here he hadn’t planned his work at all. He started by removing her armor, first the helmet then working his way down to gently pry the metal from her badly broken leg. The armor would interfere with the x-ray, and make it difficult to operate.  
  
He cut off her undersuit next, no shade of shame or guilty embarrassment crossing his features. He was a doctor, not a pervert. But he _was _thankful she was wearing underclothes beneath the body suit.__  
  
The bruises and blood contrasted starkly with her pale skin, further evidence of injury found in patterned bruises and places of impact. It was as if she had fallen from the craft when it crashed. Darryl recoiled at the idea that she was one of many strewn across the snow fields, the rest to find peace in the icy embrace of the storm.  
  
He was hesitant to administer anesthesia. She was already unconscious, and very weak. He decided against it, keeping her vitals on the main screen to search for any indication that she was in more pain than she already was. Pulling up a scanner, Darryl took an x-ray and scanned for internal injury, though the latter would take a bit to finish.  
  
In terms of bones alone, she was in pretty good shape. Her broken leg would be easy to set and it would probably heal properly. Her hip, by some miracle, was merely dislocated, rather than shattered as Darryl had feared based on the bruising. Her skull had a small chip, but nothing more. It was honestly amazing she was in such good shape, and had the strength to find the cave.  
  
Carolina’s spine was the first order of business. A vertebra had broken, and though it thankfully hadn’t severed her spinal cord, it was putting excessive pressure on the sensitive bundle of nerves.  
  
Thank the UNSC for microsurgery lasers, which quickly but painlessly drilled into the bone, creating space for pins to hold the vertebra back from the spinal cord. The cuts for the surgery were cauterized closed in a matter of minutes, and Darryl was free to move onto more pressing issues.  
  
The head wound was the next to be treated, more so because the blood that floated around the grav table was making it difficult to work without being soaked in blood. The first thing to go was her hair. Darryl felt bad, but it had to be done. He could barely differentiate from her red locks from the sticky blood. Now able to see the cut more clearly, it was easy to remove the chipped bone fragments and stitch up.  
  
After wiping away the worst of the blood, Darryl saw the neural implant. A small rectangle of material woven seamlessly into the skin. It couldn’t have been metal, it would have frozen and bled. But blood did drip from the implant’s outlet, where modules of some manner could be attached, but it wasn’t a UNSC standard he had seen before. Darryl couldn’t fix it without knowing more about it.  
  
“Hey Darryl – What happened to her hair!” Mike said, well, shouted upon returning to the med bay. Darryl stood very still, taking a deep breath as he finished cutting the excess from the stitches.  
  
“Loud,”  
  
“Sorry,” Mike whispered, walking closer to see the pile of discarded hair. “Why’d you cut her hair?”  
  
“I needed to be able to see her injury, it’ll grow back.” The medic explained, gesturing to the fresh sutures. Mike opened his mouth to respond, his next reasonable question being ‘Where are her clothes?’ But an alarm sounded from the main terminal, reporting a decrease in oxygen flow to the lungs.  
  
Darryl didn’t need the alarm to tell him that, Carolina’s wet gasps bringing a flicker of consciousness to glassy eyes. Slowly deactivating the grav table, so as to not hurt the patient, he pointed to the top cabinet above the terminal.  
  
“Mike! Top shelf, looks like a turkey baster with a needle, now!” He said firmly, restraining the panic that set his heart racing. Grav tables were very useful. They kept pressure off of every injury, and let the doctor work from any angle and perspective without discomfort to the patient. There were few draw backs, though some patients suffered minor nausea when conscious and on the grav table.  
  
This was not nausea. Darryl had been so preoccupied by the wounds he feared could cause lasting damage, he had ignored the broken ribs and the finally complete internals scan.  
  
One of the ribs had punctured through the abdominal wall, the source of the earlier bleeding he had stemmed with wound gel. Because of this, air was allowed to enter the body cavity, putting pressure on the lungs. She was being asphyxiated.  
  
Of course, these organized thoughts came after the flurry of motion that was Mike grabbing the device, and Darryl whispering an apology before stabbing the large needle into Carolina’s chest, the plastic stopper pushed up, air whistling as it escaped. She gasped, drawing deep breaths as unfocused eyes blinked away tears.  
  
“Sorry,” Darryl said again, catching his own breath. Mike stood back from the table, but the other soldier could see him shaking. “You can wait outside, on the benches. I just…need to fix up those ribs and set the leg. Then clean up and get her in bed, okay? Maybe go find the girls and the other two, I’m sure Ezra and Vera will want to know she’s here,” Mike took his helmet from the neat pile of armor, and with a stiff nod, exited the med bay.  
  
Darryl did as he said, quickly tending to the ribs and closing the wound where they had breached. The leg was set, cast applied, and blood wiped away. Transitioning her from the grav table to the recovery bed as no problem; without her armor, she was much lighter, and smaller, making her easier to carry.  
  
He took a moment to put a gauze pad on her neural implant, to soak up the steady drip of blood. He would look at the internals’ scan in more detail to see if he could do anything to help. He wasn’t a brain surgeon, after all. But the implants did intrigue him. Darryl had noticed the implants before on the former freelancers, but never put much thought into them. He had asked Ezra about it once, but received an unsure shrug in response.  
  
_“Don’t know what they’re for really, though the place holders they gave us for the outlets can store computer data, like pictures and stuff,” ___  
  
_“It doesn’t, it didn’t bother you? That the program put something in your head but didn’t say what for?” ___  
  
_“…Okay, maybe it was a little weird, but everybody in the program got them. Guards, pilots, the food service people…who knows? Maybe they’re trackers,” ___  
  
The conversation wasn’t revisited. Maybe it should be. Darryl planned to ask Mike, he seemed to have a better understanding of the Freelancer armor and technology.  
  
It was when he was finishing setting her IV drips when the shuffle of many feet stumbled into the med bay, voices lifting up in confusion, shock and pain. He sighed, pulling a curtain around the bed in a futile attempt to shield the resting soldier from the chaos. It was going to be a long night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Carbie for the comment, and all of you for your kudos and for bookmarking this fic. It's such a nice way for me to chill after school ^v^ I love you guys so much!


	6. Headaches and Heartbreaks

“Holy – _fuck _, shit that’s, how-”__  
  
“What’s with all the blood…and hair?”  
  
“Who’s armor is that? That is not regulation, but the color choice suggests-”  
  
“Guys…what’s going on, who-”  
  
“It’s _her _oh fuck why – how – when-”__  
  
“Wait, you know her V?”  
  
“Guys…headache…shh…”  
  
“Yes, oh fuck, oh Ezra, it’s _her _it has to be-”__  
  
“Wait, Vera, is this the one you…?”  
  
“Hold on, is this an ex-lover thing? ‘Cause that’d be kind of hot,”  
  
“Everybody shut up!” Darryl snapped, voice firm but soft. Ezra was not looking good, one hand on Vera’s shoulder and the other tentatively outstretched in front of himself. Terrill’s arm was not supposed to bend like that. Sherry seemed fine, other than slouching a little to support Terrill. Vera had taken her helmet off and was ghostly pale.  
  
“…Thanks,” Ezra mumbled, head nodding slightly in the medic’s direction. Darryl sighed and stole a glance at the curtained bed. He hoped the painkillers were enough to keep her out through that ruckus.  
  
“Terrill, sit here, I’ll get a scan of your arm to make sure it doesn’t need surgery. Vera, help Ezra to the grav table, then leave with Sherry. Please,” Darryl said, taking a deep sigh. Mike peered cautiously around the door frame. “Mike can fill you in while you wait, but this is definitely a squad meeting kind of thing we need to discuss. Together.”  
  
It was difficult to guide Ezra to the table, but once he was sitting on it he seemed to calm down. Terrill sat in the waiting chair, still cradling his mangled arm. Darryl kept the table turned off.  
  
“What the hell happened to you two?” Darryl asked, helping Ezra take his helmet off.  
  
“We were running…then T…”  
  
“I got hit by fucking robo-shark-ninja person or something, they punched Ezzie’s lights out and we woke up in a fucking igloo,” Terrill said, tilting his head. “That sound ‘bout right?”  
  
“I guess,” Ezra said, holding his head in his hands.  
  
“Hey,” Darryl asked, putting a hand on the soldier’s shoulder. He flinched away. “What’s you name?”  
  
“…Agent Idaho?” Ezra said softly, though a sigh of defeat soon passed through his lips. “Fuck, no, I’m Ezzie. Ezra. That’s right, right?”  
  
“Yeah, that’s right Ezra. What project were you apart of?”  
  
“I…I can’t remember the _name _but I remember _it _, just, just give me a second,” His breathing was ragged, eyes empty.____  
  
“It’s okay Ezra, let me guess, your head hurts? Dizzy? Nauseous?” Darryl received a muffled murmur of confirmation. “You’re concussed, obviously. I’m just going to run a quick scan to make sure there’s no permanent damage we’ll need to address, so just lay down on the table and it’ll be over before you know it and you can get some sleep,”  
  
Darryl couldn’t address any major problem. He wasn’t a qualified neurosurgeon. Even the surgery on Carolina’s spine was dubious in its success. But he didn’t need to tell the already agonized and confused patient that.  
  
“Just lay still, the scan will take a few minutes. So while that’s happening I’m going to get a quick x-ray of Terrill with the hand scanner and get his arm set, okay?”  
  
“…’kay,”  
  


* * *

_____ _

______  
“Are you – I mean, Mike, really, were you 100%, absolutely not hallucinating from hypothermia or in general, positive it was the Carolina?”  
  
“Y-yes? She looks like Carolina, has her armor – well, not the helmet – but, yeah, that’s her,”  
  
“Judging by _your _need for certainty and tone of…fear, and admiration, and _your _uncharacteristic lucidity,” Sherry said, pointing first to Vera and then to Mike. “This lady sounds like she was very prominent, to say the least, in your past.” She put her hands on her hips, facing the two former freelancers. “Spill the beans,”____  
  
“She’s only number one on the leaderboard, no biggie,” Vera said, a tremor of envy and genuine veneration in her voice. “But, she’s also, like, unbeatable. Untouchable. Literally the best fighter ever. I’ve never seen _anybody _land a hit on her.”__  
  
“She is also…very pretty,”  
  
“You just say that because she was the last person you saw before you passed out when your oxygen stopped working,”  
  
“Are you saying she isn’t pretty?”  
  
“…no,”  
  
“Wait, so this Carolina, you…had a crush on her?” Sherry asked, raising an eyebrow at her partner.  
  
“No! She is, like, a total hardass! Even if she _is _a good fighter, I think the only person who can even stand her is York,” Vera said defensively, folding her arms across her chest. “All single digits are either fakes or total badasses, Carolina, as number 1, manages to be both,” Vera glanced at the med bay down the hall. “That being said…yes, she is very pretty.”__  
  
“She doesn’t have any hair right now but I think she looks fine,” Mike said, a little too loudly. He could hear the slight echo from the hallway. “Sorry,”  
  
“Well, then isn’t it a good thing she’s here? If she’s so important then your Project will search for her, and find us.” Sherry said, watching her friend’s faces carefully. “Won’t they?”  
  
“Probably,” Vera said, leaning against the wall. “But if she’s in as bad as shape as you said Mike…maybe…” She heaved a sigh, looking at the ground again. Mike followed her gaze.  
  
“Yeah, maybe…” He whispered, actually quiet.  
  
“Maybe what?”  
  
“Well, I mean, I case you didn’t notice, Project Freelancer doesn’t have much use for ‘broken’ toys,” Mike said loudly, words tumbling over each other as they spewed from his lips.  
  
Sherry hadn’t heard that tone from him, something angry and bitter. She had heard plenty from Ezra, and some from Vera when she was having a bad day, but never Mike. Out of all of the freelancers, he seemed to care the least about their “discharge” from the army, but now she could see why. It was as if he was holding it back behind a dam, and now cracks were showing.  
  
“Mike,” Vera said softly, fingers twitching to reach out to him. He flinched away, eyes hard and face set in an uncharacteristic scowl.  
  
“I-It’s not my fault that s-stupid-!”  
  
“Mike, shh, you don't got your helmet on,” Terrill said, sauntering down the hallway. “Ezra’s got a hell of a headache and can hear you all the way in the med bay,” He had changed out of his armor into his casual blacks, injured arm in a cast and sling. “Geez, if this Carrie lady can get Mike mad maybe we should just harvest her organs or something,”  
  
“T, don’t say things like that,”  
  
“Well, we might need ‘em, and I don’t want any repeats of the ‘bed bugs are technically in the same family as spiders so now we’re going to shoot the mattresses’ incident.” Mike growled, eyes sharp as daggers while Sherry opened her mouth to admonish Terrill. Vera could tell this was going to end _exactly _like the ‘bed bugs are technically in the same family as spiders so now we’re going to shoot the mattresses’ incident.__  
  
“Quick! Five foods you wish we had here that you remember from home, go.” Everyone went quiet at Vera’s suggestion. She feared it was a weak distraction, and they would soon devolve into shooting each other the same way they had when they first met.  
  
“…Ice cream, I miss ice cream,” Mike mumbled, giving Vera a cautious glance. He was calmer now. She gave him a soft smile.  
  
“One,”  
  


* * *

The team meeting was held in the ‘common room’ as the soldiers liked to refer to it. A circular room near the center of the Bridge’s tower, buried deep within the mountain. Much of the base was alien in origin, but at some point, a long time before any of the misfits were dropped there, the UNSC had renovated parts of the structure to service humans. The common room had couches and cushioned chairs in a tight circle around a projector, but the glass was dark since they weren’t using it.  
  
Sherry and Vera had crammed into a loveseat, Vera, being smaller, practically sitting on the other soldier’s lap. Mike sat cross legged on one couch while Terrill lounged on the other, shifting in his discomfort at every breath. Ezra sat in another chair, head tilted back, shielding his eyes from the lights of the room with his arm. Darryl stood, pacing every few minutes. He couldn’t sit still.  
  
“Well, let’s go over the fact first,” Sherry said, deciding to draw the increasingly depressed atmosphere to something productive. “The young woman Mike and Darryl found in the cave is ‘Carolina,’ who was the best soldier in Project Freelancer.”  
  
“As far as we knew,” Ezra muttered, not taking his arm from his eyes. He had regained his vision, but with that came horrible over stimulation from even the dim lights of the common room. “It’s been, what, 6…7…8 months now? They could have gotten someone even better than her and dropped her off here like us,”  
  
“Facts, Ezra, not speculation. We don’t know any of that for sure,” Sherry chided, voice soft, “We do know that you saw someone leaving the wreck, and you thought they were being chased by another person, right?”  
  
“Definitely someone in black armor running. It was hard to tell if someone or something was chasing them, even with the scope. I thought I saw an orange helmet but the rest of the suit must’ve been white, I couldn’t make it out against the snow.”  
  
“Then the ninja runs into me like a fucking truck,” Terrill said, voice raspy from sleep. The painkillers Darryl gave him the night before had done their work well.  
  
“And then they punch me in the face,” Ezra continued, rubbing the black bruise across his forehead left from his helmet. “And we wake up a while later in a friggin’ igloo, cause why the fuck not?”  
  
“There’s our first mystery,” Darryl said, coming to a shifting stop behind Ezra’s chair. “Who built the igloo and put you two in it? And why?”  
  
“Could’ve been the black armored person,” Vera suggested, but Terrill shook his head.  
  
“Then why the hell did they trample me and punch out Ezzie?”  
  
“Maybe they didn’t want you to follow them? Or maybe they were worried that whoever or whatever was chasing them would find you?”  
  
“Or maybe whoever was chasing the ninja person built us the igloo to keep us outta the snow after the ninja left us there,” Terrill said, lifting his head from the sofa’s arm. “I still like Ezra’s initial pirate idea, or maybe bounty hunters or something, it’d explain why they’d be chasing a soldier.”  
  
“Nice theories guys, but we won’t know that unless we go out there and get to the wreck,” Sherry reminded the soldiers, a thunderclap rattling through the structure on cue. They all spent a tense moment watching the lights for a flicker, hoping their power generator was still operational. “But back to what we know for sure, Darryl?”  
  
“We found Carolina in an unmarked cave system by accident,” He began, pacing to be behind Mike’s couch. “Mike was leading us out of there, and we came to a chamber that had a small exit that was mostly covered by the snow. That’s where we found her, she must’ve crawled in there, judging by the blood trail she left. She didn’t have helmet, but her armor was pretty much intact otherwise,”  
  
“That would have been pretty close to the crash site, she wouldn’t have gotten far in her condition,” Sherry noted, watching the two men carefully. Mike nodded.  
  
“Yeah, w-we walked that way for a while before we found her. Darryl gave her an IV and patched up her bleeding best he could. Then I gave her m-my helmet and we back tracked through the caves until we were almost to the base, then walked through the storm the rest of the way.”  
  
“And you didn’t close the door behind you,” Vera said, voice light and joking. Darryl had been awake for the past 27 hours taking care of and watching over the injured, and was not amused.  
  
“We were a little busy keeping her bleeding out and drowning in her own blood,” He hissed, beginning his pacing anew. Sherry gave her partner a half-hearted smile and turned to speak to her friend.  
  
“Darryl, you are the doctor here-”  
  
“Not officially, anymore,”  
  
“Yes, but in your opinion,” Sherry said, voice even with patience. “What did her injuries reflect? An accident or something…deliberate?” Darryl thought for a moment, working his jaw as he sifted through his memories.  
  
“Her severe injuries were indicative of a fall from a height more than two stories, at least,” He said, “Blunt force trauma to the back of the skull, a cracked vertebra, broken leg, and dislocated hip all point to the likelihood of a fall,”  
  
“Could she have fallen from the ship as it crashed?” Mike asked softly, looking over his shoulder at his friend.  
  
“I doubt it, but it is a possibility,” Darryl said, “You described the crash as fiery, meaning it likely entered the atmosphere too quickly. If she fell from it while it was falling, she would be much farther away from its current position, and would likely have burns, which she doesn’t,”  
  
“She could’ve fallen off the plateau the ship crashed onto,” Ezra said, waving his hand in an attempt to describe the landscape. “It was tall, but the snow fields are pretty soft under the cliffs because of the avalanches,” Darryl nodded.  
  
“That would make sense,”  
  
“Maybe the ninja threw her off the cliff,” Terrill muttered, sighing deeply. “Or maybe the orange helmet person,”  
  
“But why? And how? I thought she was the best soldier in your program. You guys might not have been the best freelancers, but your still capable soldiers. She could probably take one mercenary pirate person,” Sherry asked, looking at Vera. The smaller woman shrugged.  
  
“We won’t really know anything until she tells us something,” Vera said looking around at the soldiers. “She is gonna wake up, right Darryl?” Darryl stopped his pacing, standing stiff.  
  
“She should,” He said confidently, but everyone could hear the words he only thought. “I hope,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope y'all don't mind me headcanoning the fUCK out of the Triplets/ex-Charon soldiers. We don't have a lot of canon material on their exact back stories so I'm just interpreting here. Shoutout to Banhammer52 for the kudos, and special thanks to all of you who have bookmarked, given kudos, and commented ont his fic so far ^w^


	7. A Hibernating Frog

Carolina did not wake up the next day. Or the next. But she couldn’t tell.  
  
She felt like she was deep underwater, held down by mud and gravity. Sometimes she would remember that she was underwater, and that she was drowning, and she would struggle and swim toward the silvery surface. But she was so tired, and by the time she was within reach of consciousness she was too exhausted to hold onto it, and she would sink back to the muddy bottom and rest.  
  
This cycle of swimming and sinking continued for a long time, nothing but twitching fingers and eyes shifting in her sleep as an indication to the other soldiers that she was still there. She would hear them sometimes, talking to each other, talking to her in soft voices. She could hear cabinets open, doors close, and feet shuffle.  
  
Carolina didn’t really begin to wake up for another week. Even then it was restricted to a few seconds of conscious pain, eyes flickering open but vision unfocused as she was pulled back to sleep. She didn’t dream. That much she was thankful for.  
  
One day she did wake for more than a few confused seconds of white lights and the smell of disinfectants. It was quiet, the lights of the med bay dimmed. The only sound was the hum of electricity and another person’s gentle snoring.  
  
Part of her half dreamed of a gentle weight on her hand, that she would open her eyes and York would be next to her as he had been before. That Tex, the crash, Maine – that all of that was some horrible nightmare, and that she was safe. That everyone was safe.  
  
But the woman curled up in the chair beside Carolina’s bed was not York, and the cramped room wasn’t comparable to the MoI intensive care unit. The weight on her hand was a mere phantom, the IV needle feeding blood and liquids but no warmth or touch. Her mouth was dry, and everything _hurt _.__  
  
Apparently the slight shift in her breathing as she opened her mouth to heave a sigh was enough to wake the snoring woman, who sat up with a slow cautiousness. Carolina didn’t recognize her at all, dark eyes and curly hair never glimpsed among the Freelancer ranks. A fear settled on the bedridden soldier, the pressure in her chest keeping her from the sleep that usually followed these spells of consciousness.  
  
“It’s alright,” The stranger said, raising her hands slowly as she stood over Carolina. “You’re safe now, it’s safe here,” Carolina tried to respond. Ask ‘where is here?’ ‘who are you?’ but no sound came. Her voice was strangled, throat parched and sore. “Do you want some water?” Carolina nodded.  
  
The woman disappeared from view for a moment, but the injured freelancer could hear her walk to another part of the room and the sound of running water. In a moment she returned, holding a glass of water to Carolina lips.  
  
“Drink,” She said softly. The water was freezing, but it tasted sweet and refreshing. “My name’s Sherry, and you are?”  
  
“C-Carolina,” She answered, cautious. She didn’t know who this ‘Sherry’ was, what she wanted, who she worked for, why she helped her-  
  
“She’s awake!” Both Carolina and Sherry jumped at the new voice, the booming exclamation echoing through the tunnels of the base. Carolina couldn’t see the man from her bed, but there was something familiar about the lilt of his voice.  
  
“Mike,” Sherry said sternly, looking to what was likely the exit of the room. “Too loud,”  
  
“Sorry,” Mike half whispered in response.  
  
“Go get Darryl,” She said, turning back to Carolina. “Darryl’s the doctor here, he’ll want to know that you’re awake, it’s been a while since we got you here,” So many questions swirled in Carolina’s throbbing head, a migraine awakened by Mike’s shout.  
  
“How long?” She asked slowly, breathing steadily as she inventoried her aching body. She could at least feel her legs again, though her right leg was bound in a cast and elevated. Her chest ached with every breath, and she could feel stitches pull at her skin. A faint burning sensation rippled across the nerves in her back, and she tried to sit up. Sherry gently pushed her back down.  
  
“Ten days,” The woman said softly, eyes calculating as she scanned Carolina’s expression. “Good thing you woke up, any longer and-”  
  
“Holy shit,” Carolina knew that voice. She really did. Seeing that curious, anxious face confirmed her suspicions.  
  
“Agent…Idaho?” She asked, memory hazy. Carolina hadn’t socialized with soldiers outside her circle, but The Triplets had been well known throughout MoI for their destruction of mongooses and waste of ammo.  
  
“Holy _shit _!” The soldier repeated, stumbling away from the bed. “She knows my fucking name, Sher!” The woman winced away from his tone.__  
  
“Ezra, quiet,” Sherry warned, sighing, “What are you doing here? I asked Mike to get-”  
  
“I was looking for Darryl, figured he’d be down here, got a hell of a headache again and he keeps the painkillers hidden. ‘Cause Terrill, would, y’know,” Sherry shook her head.  
  
“See the cabinet all the way to the left? Other side of the grav table, yup, that one. Third shelf, all the way to the left, in the – yup, that’s them,”  
  
“How come Dare let’s you know where he hides the meds?”  
  
“Cause I’m not gonna mix them with the last of the vodka and get plastered, like you two,”  
  
“That was _one _time,”__  
  
Carolina was barely following the conversation. The Triplets? They had dropped out of the program, as far as she knew. Idaho seemed to trust this Sherry woman, and know other soldiers here. Why would they be reassigned to an ice planet? What did the base look like? What was their objective? Who was their commanding officer?  
  
“We…should get T to build…a fucking elevator,” A man said between heaving breaths as he half jogged into the room. He looked haggard, hair sticking in every direction and dark bags under his eyes.  
  
“I told you to get some rest,” Sherry hissed from Carolina’s bedside. “You’ll do none of us any good hallucinating and having microsleep episodes,” The man, likely the ‘Darryl’ Sherry mentioned earlier, waved his hand, shushing the woman.  
  
“I was just starting to close my eyes when Mike came in vibrating at the speed of light telling me to get down here,” Darryl stopped, glaring at Idaho, or Ezra as Sherry called him, who sheepishly popped a few painkillers in his mouth before putting the bottle back in the cabinet.  
  
“Whomst, how, Sher-”  
  
“He had a grade three concussion and is in a lot of pain, he was looking for you when he came down here,” Sherry explained, giving Carolina a half smile. “Darryl’s barely slept since we found you, he’s terrified that if he slept you would die and it’d be all his fault. Took me and V two days to convince him to at least let us take shifts-”  
  
“Are we gonna tell her stories or get a hand scan of her vitals?”  
  
“You’re being cranky again,”  
  
“Shut up Ezzie,”  
  
“Darryl,”  
  
“Sorry Ezra, sorry Sher,”  
  


* * *

______  
Vera wasn’t sure why she wasn’t happy. Carolina was awake! She was alive! Rescue was probably going to be here the second the storm broke! And yet…she had spent the majority of the day avoiding the med bay. Checking the heaters, cleaning the base, changing out the mongoose’s battery– anything to avoid the bustle and warmth of the med bay.  
  
Sherry was excitedly watching Mike and Ezra interact with their former colleague, garnering every detail she could about their previous relationship or lack thereof. Darryl, after making sure Carolina wasn’t going to fall into a coma again, finally passed out on the grav table (with a little help from a small tranquilizer dose on Sherry’s behalf).  
  
“You’re doin’ it wrong,” Vera jumped at the voice, hissing as her head hit the mongoose’s open hood. Terrill had apparently been sitting in the garage stairwell for a while, or at least he stretched dramatically before walking over. “You gotta unclip the-”  
  
“I know how to change a mongoose battery,” Vera snapped, rubbing her bruised head, then grimacing when she remembered her hands were covered in grease and oil.  
  
“I know you know,” Terrill said, “Which is why it’s so weird that ya’ forgot to unlatch the core driver before tryin’ to take out the battery,” He detached said coupling with his good hand, pretending not to notice the flush on Vera’s cheeks. Without a word, she pulled the old battery from the vehicle and marched it to the charging station.  
  
“Just, didn’t sleep much last night, it was my shift,” Vera said, hoping to sound convincing. She did not sound convincing. She knew Terrill was pretending not to notice too.  
  
“Could change this baby’s oil too, poor thing don’t like the deep snow much,” He said nonchalantly, waking to the workbench. “Could you give me hand, seeing as you’ve got twice as many as me at your disposal,” Vera cracked a smile, rolling her eyes as she picked up the oil can for him.  
  
“Maybe you should get stoned, then you’d have four times as many hands,” She said, shoving him gently with a grease covered hand.  
  
“Ey, this is my good shirt!” He whined, whimpering as he looked at the stain. “That’s never coming out, is it?” Vera laughed, kicking the oil pan under the mongoose.  
  
“Probably not,” She said, getting underneath the vehicle and draining the old oil. When she sat up, she could see Terrill either wasn’t amused by the ruined shirt, or was thinking about something else entirely. It was the latter.  
  
“Y’know, I’m not as good as Sherry ‘bout these things. People and feelings and what they’re thinking and stuff,” He started, rubbing the back of his head. Vera leaned back, sitting on the ground against the mongoose. She did not want a lecture. “But you _really _don’t want to talk to Carrie if you’re down here tolerating me,”__  
  
“What if I told you I have grown to genuinely enjoy your company and think of you as a good friend?”  
  
“You’d be lying,”  
  
“Got me there,” Vera said with a sigh, bringing her knees to her chest. “It just that…she…she was the fucking best, like _the _best.” She buried her face in her knees, sighing. “And we were the absolute _worst _. Even, even our friends like Connie and Dave were embarrassed to talk to us, and when we got this – this fucking ‘mission’ – it was supposed, to change all that, y’know? But-”____  
  
“But you guys got dumped off here and stars know what they told her?” Terrill said gently, sitting next to Vera. She gave a whimper of confirmation.  
  
“Yeah, and I’ve…I’ve just got this bad feeling about, about all of this,”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“I don’t know,” She said turning her head to the side to look at the other soldier’s face. “I really don’t know, but…I don’t know what happened. None of us do. Is…is the war over? Is it worse? Is – Is there even a _home _to go home to? I’m…I’m scared, that she isn’t a bearer of good news, y’know?”__  
  
“Yeah,” Terrill said, voice soft. Vera hadn’t seen his eyes like that before. There was something calculated, sharp, not dulled by the buzz of a few drinks or hidden behind lazily half lidded eyes. “I used to think about the war a lot before you three showed up,” He sat back, adjusting his injured arm in its sling. “Thought you might’ve come to tell us we could go home, relax, all that. But…”  
  
“We were in the same boat as you guys?”  
  
“Yeah,” He said, heaving a sigh. “Having y’all around made it easier to ignore. Those bad questions. Ones we can’t answer. What did they tell people when they sent us here? If we get off this rock is it really going to be better? Is whatshisname married yet? Is somebody new sitting in our seats in the cafeteria? You know, stuff like that.” He paused, face softening at Vera’s crestfallen expression. “But the good thing about your Carolina bein’ here means we’ll get some answers, we just got to ask her,”  
  
“And what if they aren’t good answers? What if-”  
  
“What if it’s all good news?” He interrupted, sleepy smile sliding across his face. “What if my lil' sis finally tied the knot with that idiot from Hathor II? What if the war is over and we can go home? What if we get full compensation for being on an icy death planet for a year?” Vera sighed, pulling the oil pan out from under the mongoose.  
  
“A little too optimistic for my taste,” She muttered, screwing the oil drain shut from under the mongoose.  
  
“You gotta look on the bright side, V, otherwise you’re going to drive yourself crazy with worst-case-scenario what ifs,” He chuckled a little. “I almost did,”  
  
“Pft, who said you didn’t?” Vera said, helping him to his feet.  
  
“Darryl, technically, but he isn’t one of those brain doctors, so I guess we’ll have to wait to find out,” Terrill responded, watching her refill the oil then close the mongoose’s hood. “We can put the battery back when it’s all charged up, while we wait we can ask our new Freelancer some questions,”  
  
“Yeah, like, how the fuck aren’t you dead? Who died when we were gone-” Terrill clicked his tongue.  
  
“Good questions, one’s you’d like the answer of,” Vera rolled her eyes but thought for a moment as they headed down the corridor to the med bay.  
  
“Uh, what’s the leaderboard look like? Is Wash still convinced he can eat with his helmet on? Um, have you punched York for hitting on you lately?”  
  
“There ya go! C’mon, I’m sure she’d rather answer questions like that instead of boring ‘what happened to you’ and ‘why are you here’ bullshit,”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't know how mongooses work, but neither do you because they're from a fictional space story with aliens and supersoldiers. Special thanks to Banhammer52 and sharkdad (ilysm friendo) for their comments! And thanks to all of you who have sent kudos and bookmarked this fic, you have no idea how happy it makes me that other people actually enjoy my manic obsession with side characters and minor unexplained plot points.


	8. Bed Bugs

“What do you mean she ‘needs to rest’? Vera just got up the nerve to come and see her!”  
  
“Terrill, shush,” Sherry said, standing as a human barricade to the med bay door. “Darryl is sleeping for the first time all week, and Carolina is still recovering,”  
  
“She just slept for a fucking fortnight, she’s rested enough-”  
  
“She fell at least two stories, broke more bones in her body than you can name, nearly cracked her skull open, and woke up surrounded by strangers and colleagues she barely ever spoke to,” Sherry said with a huff. “Let her sleep for the night.” Terrill was about to retort, but Vera shushed him.  
  
“It’s okay T, I’ll ask her about that stuff tomorrow,” She look at her partner with a sleepy smile. “I want to hear what she told you guys,” The three started walking down the corridor to the common room, Mike and Ezra’s soft voices echoing up ahead.  
  
“Not much, actually,” Sherry explain, her expression hardening as the gears turned in her mind. “Asked lots of questions though. Who we were, why Mike and Ezra were here, etcetera.”  
  
“What’d you tell her?” Vera asked, a tremor of anxiety seeping into her voice.  
  
“The truth,” Sherry said, shrugging, eyes soft in an attempt to reassure her friend. “Darryl, Terrill, and I were the worst soldiers at Charon, so they dropped us off here to quietly kill us off. The same thing happened to you three, we fought for a while, you ran out of food, we made amends, and now we live together.”  
  
“That…leaves out a _lot _of the important details,” Terrill growled, “Like how you shot two of us in the foot, how we’re running out of power reserves and won’t last another year, how we need rescue ASAP. Y’know, minor things like that.”__  
  
“She was barely lucid enough to follow a conversation, T, I doubt she would comprehend that much detail, let alone stay calm enough not to agitate her injuries,” Sherry explained, voice edging on annoyance. “Besides, now that she isn’t comatose, she’ll be getting better every day. Which means we’ll have lots of time to talk about whatever-”  
  
“Vera, Carolina, _the _Carolina remembers me!” Ezra shouted, practically shaking with excitement.__  
  
“I think his painkillers kicked in,” Sherry mumbled, rolling her eyes at the soldier as he sped up to the trio.  
  
“O…Okay? Did she remember me?” Vera asked gently, aware that the remaining ‘painkillers’ at the base weren’t…really for that, even though they helped. Can’t feel the pain if you’re a little too high to care.  
  
“Nope, didn’t ask. She asked lots of questions though, not about you. Just, lots of questions,” Ezra said, shifting from foot to foot. “I’m _starving _\- she wasn’t hungry at all, because Darryl had been giving her that nutrient serum stuff – but I am famished,” Terrill shook his head.__  
  
“C’mon Ezzie, let’s go make dinner, I’m sure we can do something with those…what are they called again Sher? The purple ones?”  
  
“Eggplants, of the Sicilian variety,”  
  
“Neat,” Terrill turned back to Ezra, who stared at the soldier wide eyed and curious. “Let’s go make some fucking eggplant omelets,”  
  
“Terrill that’s not-” Sherry sighed as the two headed off to the biosphere garden. She smiled at Vera. “I’ll make sure they don’t set our food supply on fire, or the rest of the base, or make an entirely inedible meal for us,” She planted a kiss on her lover’s cheek. “We can talk and chill later, ‘kay?”  
  
“M’kay,” Vera hummed giving a kiss in return. She smiled, watching Sherry until she turned the corner and began yelling down the hall.  
  
“That is _not _a toy! Put it down _now _!”____  
  
Vera chuckled sliding into one of the chairs in the common room. Mike sat cross legged on the opposite couch, face set and eyes glazed with thought.  
  
“So, you got to talk to Carolina,” Vera said, pulling at the unraveled threads on the chair’s arm. “What do you think? We getting out of here soon or what?” No response. “Mikey?”  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“You talked to Carolina, right?”  
  
“Oh – oh, sorry, I was, just, thinking, about…stuff,” He said, eyes casting a nervous glance in the direction of the med bay. “Oh, um, yeah, yeah I think we’ll get out of here soon, and…stuff,” Vera sighed, leaning forward in her chair.  
  
“You wanna talk about it?”  
  
“What?”  
  
“You seem a little distracted. More than usual,” She said, giving her friend a half smile. “If you want I could get Sherry-”  
  
“No,”  
  
“Okay,”  
  
“It – I – she – she reminds me of the Counselor a little too much,” Mike stuttered, pulling his knees to his chest. “I mean she’s nice and I like her and all she’s just…like that,”  
  
“She’s…intense, yeah,” Vera said, hoping not to overtake the conversation. Mike shook his head violently.  
  
“No, that’s not it, she just, I don’t know,” He sighed, dropping his head. “She can see right through you and it’s just scary, especially when you don’t want her to notice stuff,”  
  
“I know what you mean,” Vera said, shifting in her seat. “But she has worked really hard not to bring stuff up if we don’t ask her too,” She kept her voice soft and low. “That’s probably why she went with Ezra and T, she knew you were being quiet but didn’t want to talk to her about it,”  
  
“Yeah it’s just…” He sighed, letting his head loll to the side. “Should I…talk about it? With Sherry? Or – or even with Ezzie? And Darryl and Terrill? I – I don’t want to make, or change, anything but, I don’t know,”  
  
“Mikey,” Vera said meeting his sad eyes, “You can talk to us about anything, that’s what teams are for,” She glanced down the hallway, the smell of…something probably edible wafting through the base. “But, you do it in your own time, y’know? Things have been…weird, and all, but –”  
  
“Vera!” Both Mike and Vera jumped at Sherry’s shrill scream from the kitchen. “Control your blue idiot!” Vera sighed, chuckling a little as she stood from the chair.  
  
“We better go help them,” She said, wincing at the sound of shattered glass from down the hall. “Hey! Watch it, we’ve only got so many plates left!” Mike smiled, following his friend down the corridor.  
  


* * *

______  
Darryl woke up around 2:00 in the morning.

Except, being on an alien planet, the days and nights were very different from Earth, so in terms of planetary revolutions, it was closer to 6:00. When the Triplets and Ex-Charon soldiers finally started living together in the base, Terrill had to sit everyone down and synchronize their clocks. It was difficult to get anything done when everyone slept and ate and worked at odd hours, so the new routine was established with only a few minor hiccups.

Darryl never cared much for the schedule, sleeping when he felt like it and staying awake when he didn’t. Sherry had given her fair share of lectures, but even she could only do so much to keep the unemployed workaholic from burying himself in work he made for himself. Genetically sequencing the garden plants, cross breeding experiments with the potatoes, constant checkups on the other soldiers – anything to keep from thinking.

But at 2 a.m. in the dark medical bay, there wasn’t much to think about. He felt refreshed, if a bit sluggish from the sedative Sherry had given him. His back hurt, more from lying curled up on the cold grav table than from any injury or strain. Darryl sat up, swinging his legs over the table’s edge. He was in his blacks, armor discarded back in his quarters yesterday in a futile attempt to get comfortable.

Something rattled from the other side of the room, starling the still groggy doctor. He managed to keep his muttered curses soft, though it took a moment for his white knuckled grip on the table’s edge to release. He took a deep breath, steadying himself as he slipped down from the metal table. Carolina was probably having a hard time sleeping after so long in her coma.

Darryl turned his head to the side, cracking his neck and stretching his shoulders as he shuffled over, the dimmed lights of the med bay barely illuminating the curtain around her bed. He pulled it back and sighed. Carolina was still asleep. That was good, it meant he didn’t have to articulate sentences and interact with another sentient human being yet.

She had managed to pull down the IV stand, eliciting a soft groan from Darryl as he kneeled to pick it back up. Luckily, the fluid bags hadn’t been damaged, and there weren’t any bubbles in the tubing. He put the stand back up gently, the metal rattling slightly at the movement.

He looked at his patient, eyes drifting from the vitals monitor to how she slept. She lay on her side, probably in an attempt to calm the still agitated nerves in her back, but her hip would not be happy in the morning. If he just, pulled her over to her back, she would be more comfortable, and wouldn’t knock over the IV stand again. He reached over the bed and put his hand gently on her shoulder.

Which was a horrible mistake.

Carolina grabbed his hand, holding it close to her as she used her other hand to reach for his throat, pinning him against the bed side. She was barely awake, eyes still glazed with sleep but bright with anger, and fear. Darryl clawed at her hand, unable to breathe, words strangled.

“P-please…st-top…” He managed, voice whispery but hoarse. Her grip didn’t loosen. He only had so much air in his lungs.

Darryl looked around frantically, mentally whispering a silent apology as his free hand jabbed at her stitches. Her grip loosened, whimpering as she flinched away. Darryl scrambled backwards, gulping deep breaths of sweet, cold air as he knocked over the chair and crawled to the wall.

They were both quiet for a moment, Carolina’s bright eyes peering at him across her bed. Darryl barely noticed, happy to breathe again but absolutely terrified at the same time. He pulled his knees to his chest, rubbing his neck with his hands. That was going to bruise.

“I’m…oh my God I’m so sorry…” Carolina whispered, voice groggy but heart monitor beeping in time with her rapid heart rate. Darryl took a few more deep breaths, an irrational fear of suffocating itching the back of his mind.

“’S fine, T-Terrill’s done worse, believe me,” He said, giving a half hearted smile. Carolina didn’t seem any less upset.

“I shouldn’t of…I don’t know why-”

“It’s okay,” Darryl affirmed, crawling to his feet. “I shouldn’t have tried to roll you over, or I should have at least asked first,” She still had her face set in a frown.

“Still, I’m sorry,” She said, shifting slightly in the bed. It probably wasn’t very comfortable for her to exert herself so much in her condition.

“And I’m sorry for startling you,” Darryl said, picking up the chair and grimacing. “And for pulling at your stitches, uh, do you mind if I just make sure they didn’t rip?”

“It’s fine,” She said, Darryl nodding nervously as he pulled down the blanket and looked over the stitches. They were bleeding, but didn’t seem to have broken. He got up and headed back to the ‘operating room’ section of the med bay.

“I’ll grab a bandage pad, so the sheets don’t get too bloody, we can only do laundry so often since we started rationing soap,” Darryl turned up the lights, the gentle yellow glow making the cold medical bay seem warmer.

“You said...Terrill... has done something like that before?” She asked tentatively, listening to Darryl rummage through the shelves in the other room.

“There you are,” He said, mostly to himself as he pulled the package of gauze down from its shelf. “And, uh, yeah, he doesn’t get drunk – like, _really _drunk often, not anymore – but when he does… one time he pinned me down to the ground, nearly broke my neck. Sherry had to knock him out cold,” Darryl chuckled, shaking his head as he walked over with the bandage. “Damn she can hit hard,”__

“And you weren’t…mad?”

“Nah, not really,” Darryl said, oblivious to Carolina’s nervous glances. “Hard to be mad at the only other guy on the planet. Besides, he’s…working through some stuff. We all are, kind of, but he’s got some heavy stuff from the war, it hits him harder some days. Sorry, this might sting.” He put the bandage over the stitches. “There, no more bleeding on the good, clean sheets,”

“Sorry,” Carolina said, giving a small huff of playfulness.

“It’s fine, but I think these are actually the only sheets without bullet holes in them in the entire base though, so, just, don’t shoot the bed,”

“Why would I – how did you-?”

“Long story,” Darryl said, waving his hand as he sat in the chair, absentmindedly rubbing his bruised neck. Carolina could see it already turning a lovely shade of purple.

“I think we’ve got the time,” Carolina said, secretly hoping he would help keep her from falling asleep. Darryl nodded his head, glancing at the clock on the wall.

“Okay, so, you know Mike, kind of, right?”

“Uh, Iowa?”

“Yeah, yeah, just call him Mike, those three haven’t gone by those names in months, anyway, he is _terrified _of spiders. Sherry thinks he just has some horrible phobia, anyways, Vera was talking about how lucky we are that the cold killed off any bed bugs. And of course Terrill has to pop in and remind us that bed bugs are arachnids…”__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like writing this story ^w^ Special thanks to Malaayna for kudos, and thanks to Lepord257 and SeCrFiDr for their lovely comments!


	9. I'm GAY and SAD

“You ready?” Sherry asked, watching her girlfriend carefully as the smaller woman paced their shared room. Sherry already knew the answer, she knew that Vera was a tangle of nerves barely held together by optimism and spite for her own anxiety, but it was polite to ask.  
  
“No,” The former freelancer said, a nervous laugh escaping her throat as she wrung her hands. “I thought I was, the other day, and now I’m just – just, oh gosh, – I’m going to-”  
  
“Going to be fine,” Sherry said, holding Vera’s shoulders. She planted a kiss on the other woman’s lips, gently caressing her face. “We’re all going to be fine, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Even if you’re scared. We’re going to be just fine.” Vera gave a shaky smile, unconvinced.  
  
“I – I guess…”  
  
“Tell me, what is the _worst _thing she could possibly tell you? Hm?” Sherry asked, holding her partner closer. “That help isn’t coming? That’s what we always prepared for. What we expected. If she tells us that the war has gotten worse and humanity has reached its breaking point? We’re so far away it we can’t even tell. Nothing will change. That’s the worst of it. Nothing will change.” She kissed Vera’s cheek again. “Nothing will ever change _us _.” Vera kissed her back, eyes closed as she breathed in the comforting smell of her closest confidante.____  
  
“Well, I guess we have to get this started then,” She said after pulling away, staring at the door with a look of disgust.  
  
“Relax,” Sherry said, gently nudging her friend’s shoulder. “We’ll ease into it, act natural. It’s not an interrogation, just, a structured Q&A session, y’know?”  
  
“Sure…” Vera said, combing through her hair with her fingers. With a heavy sigh, she left the room, walking down to the med bay as Sherry tailed close behind.  
  
Darryl was waiting in the doorway, hot cup of coffee in hand.  
  
“I am literally going to be useless once we run out of this stuff,” He muttered with a smile, lifting the mug to his lips once again.  
  
“Relax D, the tree should be fruiting in a few more months, give it time,” Sherry said, shaking her head at him.  
  
“Yeah but then it’s another nine months ‘til they’re ripe and by then,” He mimed shooting himself in the head, sticking his tongue out for a more comedic effect. “Herk-blarg,”  
  
“You’ll survive, barely,” Sherry said cheerfully, in spite of giving Vera a cautious glace. The other woman gave a half-hearted smile as Darryl pointed a finger to her.  
  
“Right, you never got to talk to her the other day.” He looked through the door, giving a small wave to the hidden patient. “You up for talking? You missed…what was your code name thingy, Ohio?” Vera gave a nod. “You missed O the other day, she’s got some questions for ya, if you don’t mind.” There was a soft response from inside the room. Darryl nodded, walking away from the doorway towards the kitchen. “I’ll make up some soft food for her to try eating, she’s fine with you asking some questions,”  
  
“Thanks D,” Sherry said, then turned to look at Vera. “You ready, hun?” Vera took a steadying breath.  
  
“Yup,”  
  
“Cool,” Sherry said, following her friend into the medical bay. “Hey C, this is-”  
  
“Agent Ohio,” Carolina said, voice still oddly hoarse.  
  
“You – you _know _me?” Vera sputtered, heat rising on her cheeks as flashes of every stupid thing the Triplets had ever done was called to mind.__  
  
“Yeah, you were, you _are _Iowa’s friend, right?” Vera gave a curt nod, flush fading from her cheeks. “Yeah, you and Idaho, the nervous one. You were a decent shot,” Carolina said, closing her eyes as if to remember some half glimpsed memory from the shooting range.__  
  
“Yeah – uh – thanks, I mean, I’m pretty good – but not as good as you, uh, obviously, or North – yeah, North was really good, uh, but actually, I, uh-”  
  
“We wanted to ask you some questions, Carolina,” Sherry said, Vera thankful that the ex-Charon soldier had interrupted her incoherent babblings. Vera pulled up the chair to the bedside, Sherry grabbing another from the makeshift ‘waiting room’ of the med bay.  
  
“Yeah, uh, well, hopefully some specifics, about what, uh,”  
  
“What the fuck happened after the Triplets got abandoned here,”  
  
“What she said,” Vera affirmed, pointing to her girlfriend as she sat next to the former Freelancer. Sherry watched a haze of emotions ripple through Carolina; guilt, sorrow, fear, and anger barely gracing her stoic expression.  
  
“When did you guys leave?”  
  
“Some time after they first got the leaderboard? Speaking of, uh, you’re like my idol, you immediately got to the number one spot, like you’re so awesome-” Vera’s rambling was cut off by Carolina’s soured expression. She didn’t need Sherry to point out that reaction for her. “But, uh, yeah. The leaderboard had just been implemented. And we were at the very bottom, as usual. And then we got sent here to die I guess,” Something softened Carolina’s harsh expression.  
  
“If you don’t mind me asking, how exactly did you get sent here? We were told you three just dropped out of the program, but the Counselor was…” That flicker of guilt settled in Carolina’s eyes. “…Suspiciously vague,” Sherry let her eyes shift to Vera, feeling the tension rise in her friend as she set her jaw and rolled her shoulders back in feigned nonchalance.  
  
“Well, things were going as usual, for us at least. Training hard as hell, making no individual progress whatsoever, cleaning up after the freelancers who actually went on missions, stuff us losers did and all.” Vera leaned forward, heaving a sigh. “And we were on our way to mission assignment, to hear you all get your fancy missions while we got stuck on standby again, and, and,”  
  
“Vera,” Sherry said softly, her friend’s voice picking up an angry, panicked tone. At her name, however, she took a breath, eyes whispering a silent thank you to the other woman.  
  
“Well, the bulkhead doors in the intersection were closed off, like when the MoI is in emergency lockdown. But then the Counselor came on the intercom and told us we had a special mission, and,” Vera sighed, shame rising on her face. “We were just so fucking tired of taking shit from South and Georgia and just…not being worth anybody’s time we…I didn’t even think twice about it ‘til 479ner told us to jump off.”  
  
“I’m sorry,” Carolina said, Sherry hearing only genuine sympathy. “They never told us-”  
  
“And it was stupid too, like, what were a bunch of idiots like us going to do? They – they didn’t even fucking tell us _what _the damn mission objective was! And I was just, just so frustrated and _hopeful _that maybe we would prove ourselves or something, that I, I just-”____  
  
“You just followed orders,” Sherry said, holding Vera’s hand. “We all did, mostly, and we got dicked over anyways.” She looked at Carolina, a shade of guilt and sympathy coloring her expression. Sherry knew that Carolina had likely prompted Vera’s story to stall her own. Carolina did not want to talk about what happened, but she needed to, or they were never going to get off this ice planet. “But that’s how they ended up here. What about you, Agent Carolina?”  
  
“It…it’s a long story,” She stuttered, voice uncharacteristically unsure. Sherry watched the emotions that passed through her, twitching at her eyes and lips. Anger. Fear. Grief. Pain. Vera did not notice these things.  
  
“Well, we ain’t exactly going anywhere fast,” She said, settling into her chair and crossing her legs. “The storm’s too heavy to get a good signal, or even get outside. We’re stuck here with you until then, so a long story might be nice,” By now Carolina’s chagrin at the idea of explaining the series of events that left her half dead in an ice cave was evident even to Vera. “Uh, well, if you’re up for it, is all,”  
  
“Start with something simple,” Sherry suggested, calculating gaze softened in an attempt to seem friendlier. “Did something change, from your regular routine after the Triplets left? Any major changes in mission detail or new personnel?”  
  
“Tex,” Carolina snarled, spitting the name from her lips.  
  
“What? I didn’t know we had an Agent Texas! What’s he like?”  
  
“Vera,”  
  
“Sorry,” She muttered, looking at Carolina. Vera could feel the seething anger roll off of the freelancer in waves. “What about Agent Texas was…um, not good?”  
  
“She’s a cheater, for one,” Carolina snapped, heart monitor beeping at an increased speed.  
  
“Cheater at what?” Sherry asked, tone even and calm.  
  
“She’s the Director’s secret little pet project or something, I – I’m not even sure _what _she is. He would send her in after any sloppy missions to ‘clean up,’ or, or she would just show up and hijack _my _missions-”____  
  
“You clearly have no love for Tex, Carolina,” Sherry said, keeping her words well-paced in hopes of settling the anxieties that were sending the freelancer’s pulse above acceptable limits.  
  
“You can say that again, that bitch killed C.T., and she nearly killed me-”  
  
“What?” Vera said, voice quiet and choked, the breath caught in her throat. Sherry looked to her friend, whose complexion had gone pale and clammy in an instant. Carolina’s expression shifted from one of hatred and frustration to one of panic and sorrow. They didn’t know about Connie.  
  
“I – I’m, I’m sorry, Ohio, Connie,” Carolina sighed, sincere grief staining her words. “Connie died, a while ago.” Vera was expressionless, frozen with her eyes staring at a distant place beyond Carolina. Sherry held her hand, and rubbed her friend’s arm in an attempt to offer comfort.  
  
“How?” Was all she said, lips barely parted to let the pained word escape.  
  
“V,” Sherry whispered, eyes searching her friend’s face for some flicker of recognition.  
  
“How?” She repeated, gaze turning to Carolina, face washed with disbelief, and anger. Carolina swallowed hard, assuming a mask of calm, fear and guilt still bright in her eyes.  
  
“Connie…defected. She betrayed the Project and joined the Insurgency. The Resistance.” Vera didn’t understand it. She never went on missions to fight this vague splinter group the Project supposedly combatted. But she didn’t interrupt. She couldn’t, grief keeping words from forming.  
  
“We, we were on a mission to retrieve her, and her equipment. The main objective was just her equipment, her armor. She was with the Leader, Tex and I tried to, to talk her into coming with us quietly, but…she refused. We fought, we weren’t – I wasn’t trying to kill anyone, we just needed the armor back, but _Tex _…” Carolina hissed, remembering the sound of the tomahawk finding a break in the armor and sinking into flesh.__  
  
“Tex didn’t hold back, and she got…a bad hit on Connie. I, I freaked out on her, but while we were arguing the Leader got Connie out of there. I…I don’t know if she made it. The armor readout logged her heartrate dropping steadily then…nothing.” Carolina looked up, Vera’s face still blank and pale. “I’m sorry, Ohio-” Vera got up suddenly, knocking her chair over as she marched out of the room.  
  
“Vera!” Sherry called, panic infiltrating her voice and glimmering in her eyes as she turned back to Carolina. “I’m…I’m sorry, I need, I need to make sure she’s alright,” Sherry paused as she picked up Vera’s chair. “I know it doesn’t seem like it, but, thank you, Carolina. For telling us.” But maybe ignorance was bliss, she added silently to herself as the freelancer wiped tears from her eyes.  
  
“I got some – oh stars – uh,” Darryl stood awkwardly at the door, stepping aside to let Sherry through. She gave him a curt nod, speed walking down the hallway towards her quarters. “Uh, okay, that didn’t go as…smoothly as we were hoping,” He turned an unsure smile to Carolina. “But I have a strawberry smoothie, fresh from the biosphere garden,”  
  
“No thanks,” Carolina muttered, emotionally exhausted.  
  
“Right, uh, okay,” Darryl said, setting the tray down on the seat next to his patient’s bed. Carolina needed to start eating real food. Making nutrient serum for the IV was a huge strain on their already limited resources. “Well, it’s here if you want it,”  
  


* * *

__

______  
“Shush, I’m right here,” Sherry whispered, holding Vera to her chest. The smaller woman shook, sobs wracking her body. “I’m not going anywhere,”

“I know,” Vera sniffled, puffy eyes peering up at her lover. “I – I never got the chance to – I never told her, y’know,”

“I know,” Sherry said, rocking gently and rubbing small circles on her friend’s back. “Believe me, I know,” Vera buried her face in Sherry’s shoulder, whimpering softly.

“I…I loved her, so fucking much, and I never-”

“Shush, it’s okay,” Sherry whispered, stroking Vera’s hair. “She probably knows now, maybe she always knew,” Vera was still shaking, but she seemed calmer.

“Do me a favor?” The former freelancer whispered, pulling away from the embrace to look Sherry in the eyes. “Don’t tell Mike and Ezra. Please. Not yet. She – she was their friend too. They…they should hear it from me. When I’m ready.” Sherry said nothing, but smiled softly and nod.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :') hope y'all liked this chapter, I can never tell if I write emotional scenes correctly (gotta love some severe alexithymia amiright?) but this made me feel stuff so I can only assume it'll do the same for you. On a happier note, the new season of RvB next week is pretty much the only thing keeping me going so I am HYPED for that. Special thanks again to Lepord257 and SeCrFiDr for their comments, and to all of y'all for your kudos TuT


	10. Fever Dreams

Carolina was tired, but she couldn’t sleep. Grief tore at her heart, but she couldn’t cry. She was numb, and not just from the weak anesthetic Darryl had given her to help calm the nerves in her back.  
  
Nothing since she had woken up felt real. It was all a blur of ghosts and half remembered faces, things she had forgotten out of necessity. The Triplets were mere phantoms of a passing helmet in the corridor, or a laugh in the mess hall. The red glow of the lights at the Leader’s hideout flickered in her peripheral vision, the humid sea air a hot breath on her skin.  
  
“Yup, definitely a fever,” Darryl said, grimacing at her vitals monitor. In spite of Carolina’s coma, she spent most of her time sleeping, or attempting in feel rested after keeping her eyes shut for a few hours at a time. She only slept when the allure of an administered sedative pulled her into a blissful, dreamless lull.  
  
“What from?” She asked weakly, voice hoarse. The words felt glued to her throat.  
  
“Not sure, can’t find any source of infection in your wounds, they’re healing up amazingly, by the way,” He said, hand scanner screen glowing in the dim room. Darryl’s workaholic sleep schedule and Carolina’s newfound aversion to natural sleep had led to these late night checkups.  
  
“Thanks, its hard work lying still for days on end,” Carolina replied, forcing a half smile as she looked at her casted leg. Darryl didn’t notice, still glued to his datapad, but he did smile in recognition of her sarcasm.  
  
“I’m going to run a diagnostic on your blood, see if we’re missing something. Antibiotics are in short supply, so, it’d be great if we didn’t have to use them unless it’s life or death,”  
  
“Right, right,” She murmured with a sigh, shifting uneasily beneath the thin blankets. Goosebumps rose on exposed skin, the cool air of the medbay icy against flushed cheeks. Some part of her brain heard Darryl mutter a quiet ‘Goodbye, the results will take a few hours, see you soon,’ but she could barely differentiate those words from the broken sentences swirling in her mind.  
  
The mission to retrieve the Sarcophagus constantly ran in the background of her thoughts. Maine. She had trusted him. He had trusted her. He trusted her plan to get the Sarcophagus to the roof, even if it meant facing his hatred of heights and getting separated from the team. He trusted her enough to take a shot from that sniper on the freeway for her. He trusted her when they were fighting on the flatbed to keep the briefcase safe. And she wasn’t fast enough.  
  
Every possible scenario played over and over.  
  
If she had noticed that sniper earlier, maybe he would have been strong enough to keep himself and briefcase safe from the Insurrectionists. If she had been faster, stronger when fighting on the flatbed, maybe she could have stopped that asshole from shooting her friend in the throat nine times. If instead of chasing the package and _Tex _she had gone back the second Maine got hit by that truck, maybe, maybe he would have been okay.__  
  
Maybe something would be different. Maybe she would have kept Sigma.  
  
The thought, and the fever, sent a shiver down her spine. What would have happened if she had gotten Sigma? Whatever had happened to Maine, whatever Sigma _did _to Maine was enough to have him, to make him try and kill her. Would she turn on her friends that easily? How badly had Sigma twisted Maine to turn him on her, after how much they trusted each other? What part did Tex play in all of this-?__  
  
Something across the room fell to the floor, glass shattering.  
  
“Fuck,” Whispered a hoarse voice, muffled by distance. Carolina rolled over, blinking in the sound’s direction. Her pulse was racing.  
  
“Who’s there?” Her own voice was croaky, lack of use keeping her vocal chords stiff. There was silence across the room. She pulled at curtain of her bed back, the fully armored man standing perfectly still for a beat before relaxing with a sigh of defeat.  
  
“Just me Miss. Carolina, sorry, about the noise and all,” One of his arms wasn’t armored, but rather was wrapped in a sling. She remembered that one.  
  
“You’re…Terrill, right?”  
  
“Yup, that’s me, but, uh, don’t mind me, just, go back to sleep,” He crouched behind the grav table, the clatter of broken glass scrapped up by armored fingers. Carolina could hear cabinets opening.  
  
“What’re you looking for?” She asked, thankful for any distraction, but still wary of the non-Freelancers. To be fair, she was still cautious of the Triplets.  
  
“Uh, nothing, just,” Terrill sighed heavily, peeling his helmet off and setting it on the table. “I know D keeps some…non-medical grade stuff in here, y’know, for when we run out, and I sure could use some now.” His voice was on edge, words hard and fast.  
  
“…Did you check the upper left cabinet? Third shelf, all the way to the left.” Carolina said softly, listening more than she watched the soldier slowly check the suggested cabinet.  
  
“I’ll be damned…” He muttered, pulling pill containers to the counter before taking out a glass bottle. Clear liquid sloshed around inside. Terrill huffed in amusement. “They told me we ran out of the good stuff weeks ago…” He took off the bottle’s cap and raised it to Carolina. “Thank you, ma’am,” Terrill lifted the bottle to his lips.  
  
“I’m not sure how good of an idea it is to just drink the whole thing-” Terrill’s face went sour the second he tilted the bottle back, thankfully turning to spit the liquid out in the nearby sink.  
  
“Who’s fucking bright idea was it to put goddamn _vinegar _in the old vodka bottle?”__  
  
“Mine, you jackass,” Darryl said from the door, holopad in hand. He stalked across the med bay to Carolina’s bed. “Really Carolina? I thought you were better than that,”  
  
“Better him quiet than him rummaging around in the dark,” She breathed heavily, pulling herself up to sit. “Got some good news, Doc?”  
  
“I didn’t get my PhD yet, I was just an intern, but yes, good news.” He nodded at Terrill. “You gonna sit there in your armor all night?”  
  
“Probably,”  
  
“Fine, just, stop trying to steal medical supplies, alright? I don’t operate if the patient isn’t under,”  
  
“Could always just have Sherry knock ‘em out for ya’ or whatever,”  
  
“No,” Darryll turned back to Carolina, half smile on his face. “Well, the good news is your fever should be dying down soon, it’s just a reaction to your immunizations-”  
  
“Immunizations?”  
  
“Yeah, this planet has got a ton of nasty bugs for being so fucking dead and cold. Darryl synthesized some shots for all of us after he got real sick with whatever it was. You’ll be fine,” Terrill said, sitting on the grav table and swinging his legs back and forth.  
  
“Right, yeah, your body is still weak from your injuries so it’s not as able to fight off even the weakened virus. We’ll keep it under watch, but your fever seems to be getting better already,” Darryl said, peering at her bedside monitor.  
  
“You…made vaccinations for an alien disease?”  
  
“Yup. Pretty effective, from what the others tell me,”  
  
“Yeah, poor D was sick as a dog for weeks. Nasty business, but at least the rest of us are immunized and all,” Terrill said with a laugh, Darryl rolling his eyes as he sat in the seat by Carolina’s bed.  
  
“Yeah, yeah, but it’s been gone for a while. Still, better safe than sorry, especially with the condition you’re in,”  
  
“Speaking of,” Carolina said, shifting uncomfortably beneath the sheets. “When can I…I don’t know, get out of bed or try walking or something? This is miserable, just lying here.”  
  
“Patience, you’ve only been awake a few days.” Darryl said, scrolling through the datapad. “But…you could try getting in a wheelchair tomorrow, if you’re up for it.”  
  
“Yeah, she hasn’t seen the base or the gardens yet, has she?” Terrill held his helmet on his lap, looking over the chipped paint. “Sherry managed to get some flowers blooming in there, plus all the food and all. She’s good with that kind of stuff.”  
  
“I would love that,” Carolina said, settling down in her bed. She would feel better if she knew the layout of the base.  
  


* * *

“We’ve got the common room, more or less, we have meetings in here when we need to,” Darryl explained pushing the wheelchair down the hall. Vera was curled on the couch, watching Mike and Ezra play an improvised game of chess with bullet casings as their pieces. Mike was winning, again.

“What do you have meetings about?” Carolina asked as they continued down the corridor. It wasn’t a walk, but it did feel good to get out of the bed and look around.

“Weekly chores, goals, waning power supply and barely sufficient food sources, stuff like that,” Darryl explained, pausing the chair by a room on the left. “Kitchen’s in there, not much, but it works. Can’t fit more than a few people in there so we usually eat back in the common room,”

“You’re running out of power?” Her voice was edged with concern.

“Yeah, but, don’t worry about it,” Darryl said with a smile, trying to calm his own nerves regarding the issue. “Terrill’s been working with some of the old alien tech here, thinks there’s a geothermal generator in the lower levels, he just needs to figure out how to boot it up without blowing the base to hell,”

“That is…”

“Not very comforting given what you saw of him this morning, I know, but he’s working hard. Besides, if rescue comes for you, we won’t even need to worry about it.”

“I was going to say that’s brilliant, but, point taken.” She didn’t have that usual air of confidence to her statements. Something was making her nervous.

“I’m more concerned by our diminishing supply of coffee than the power,” Darryl said, trying to lighten the mood as he pushed the chair forward to the next room. “This okay by the way? I’m not going too fast or anything?”

“No, no, it’s fine, I’m good,” She said, managing a half smile. She had really wanted to drive the chair herself, but given the nerve damage in her back, Darryl had managed to convince her to give it a few more days before they tested her strength.

Carolina could feel the humidity from the next room as they passed through the extra wide sliding door. It smelled damp, but…green, like a dewy field in the morning or forest floor after rain. It was a colorful room, green plants bright with white and purple blossoms vining their way up poles, a small rainbow reflecting in the mist. The lights above were intense, the room several degrees warmer than the rest of the base.

“And here’s Sherry’s favorite room on the planet, the biosphere garden. She’s done practically everything in here by herself, I’d kill half of these if I breathed on them wrong,”

“Not entirely by myself,” A voice said from behind a curtain of plants that lined a structure that divided the garden. Sherry peeked between the rows of plants, pulling beans off the vines and dropping them into a basket. “Terrill got the ventilation and heating system set up, and made some of the hydroponics systems,” Sherry walked around the wall of green, basket on her hip. “How you feeling C? Darryl told me you were running a fever earlier, don’t want you contaminating our food supply,”

“She’s fine Sher, just a reaction to the vaccinations,”

“Can’t be too careful nowadays, we’re lucky Ezzie and T didn’t kill everything the other day,”

“Ezra wasn’t that bad, was he?”

“Nah, but him and Terrill are a Molotov cocktail when one of them isn’t completely sober,” Sherry was watching Carolina closely. The red head was clearly eyeing the flower bed. “Darryl, show her the tulips, they just started blooming the other day. I’ve got to make breakfast for those of us who have healthy sleep schedules,”

“Save some for us!” Darryl asked, puppy dog eyes ineffective to Sherry’s blank stare.

“You ate all of the unripe cherry tomatoes off the vine at some point last night and thought I wouldn't notice, you’re lucky I don’t ban you from the biosphere entirely,”

Darryl winced, feigning hurt.

“You’ve got me there boss,” He nodded to Carolina. “Here, let’s see those flowers, they are pretty awesome,” The flower bed was a smattering of different plants, lettuces, grasses, and flowers interspersed across the small raised platform. The tulips were pretty awesome, still bright red and shiny in the damp air.

“They’re lovely,” Carolina said, voice still dull compared to the enthusiasm Darryl had been expecting given her excitement at the mere idea of leaving the med bay. “But isn’t it a waste? Growing plants you can’t eat, taking up growing space?”

“When we first started the garden, we didn’t know what half the plants were, they were just unlabeled seed packs. So, we planted a few plots of each, to see what would grow.” Darryl explained, gesturing to the rest of the garden. “What was edible got propagated, what wasn’t stays in storage. But, who knows, if we run out of food, we might have to eat some fried tulip bulbs,”

The Mother of Invention had very systematic gardening systems, from what Carolina could remember from passing glances. Very clean, streamlined, and sterile. This garden was chaotic, but somehow felt more alive than those rows upon rows of vegetables on the MoI.

“Oh! Oh, you’ll love this,” Darryl said suddenly, face bright with excitement as he gently wheeled Carolina towards a small, woody plant. “Guess what it is!”

“Um, a…bonsai tree?”

“It’s a coffee tree! It’s only got a few weeks left ‘til-”

Down the hall there was a shout, footsteps racing toward the garden. A voice choked by sobs weakly called after the fleeing footsteps. Carolina could feel her heart sink in her chest as Idaho – no, Ezra – burst through the door, fear and grief rolling off him in waves.

Vera must have broken the news to them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not dead. Just tired. Seasonal depression and iron deficiency anemia does that. This past semester was tough, and I've got some summer courses to finish up in June for my major, BUT I'm still chipping away at this and other projects. New season of RvB has really vamped up my writing motivation. Hope y'all are enjoying the new season as much as I am, the last episode literally gave me so many feels TvT   
> TYSM for reading, I love y'all.


End file.
